Waking an Anemic Giant: Exploring a Recently Discovered Circumnuclear Star Forming Ring

The disks within spiral galaxies are thought to be regions of quasi-continuous star formation, averaged over long timescales. However, in the case of the barred spiral (Sb) galaxy NGC 4314, a variety of data indicates that this system contains a circumnuclear ring of~recent massive star formation. Stellar population modeling is applied to U, V, and I--band imagery, obtained with the 0.8 meter telescope at McDonald Observatory, to explore the relationship between the strong circumnuclear star birth and the star formation history of the main disk within this object.