NGC 1097 in Fornax

A barred spiral galaxy in Fornax, this image contains over 90 hours of data, making it the longest total exposure in the history of SSRO (just a little longer than NGC 3521). The 50 hours of luminance data had an average FWHM of 1.3" before any sharpening algorithm was used.

4 dim mysterious jets emanate from the galactic center -- this image shows 2 of them -- the more obvious is at the approximate 8:30 position, and a slightly fainter one comes down from the upper left corner of the image. You can just begin to appreciate an even fainter jet originating about 180 degrees from the 8:30 jet.

The current theory is that the jets are actually the shattered remains of a cannibalized dwarf galaxy.