NGC1023

NGC1023 is a member of a group of galaxies in Perseus that also contains NGC891.  It lies about 32 million light years away from earth.  The galaxy is a type SB0 (or barred spiral with little evidence of spiral arms) and Hubble and ground based observations of star distributions have suggested that this galaxy contains a central black hole with a mass of around 40-60 million suns.  This galaxy as also been found to have a massive halo of dwarf galaxies several of which can be seen in this image (as magnitude 17+ dim galaxies).  Most of these are either spiral or irregular galaxies.

Another Keck study of globular clusters suggests that the slightly more bluish color at the top of NGC1023 is a place where young star clusters are being formed.  The ages of these clusters is around 300 million years and they are similar to the star clusters in the Magellenic clouds.  This is actually a second galaxy, NGC1023A which is interacting with NGC1023 and is likey why NGC1023 has the shape that it does have.