Inspired by Halton Arp’s Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies I decided to have a long look at NGC 4490 also known as the Cocoon Galaxy. This used to be a spiral galaxy but clashed with the smaller companion (NGC 4485) and they will meet again at some point in an epic dance of the stars.
All this is happening at 25 million light years away from us.
Probably my favourite galaxy. Distance to earth is 27 million light years and shape and bright yellow core explain where it gets its name from.
We are very lucky to be able to witness what is happening here. Bode’s Galaxy on the left is gravitationally affecting the Cigar Galaxy on the right, causing starbust.
Distance to earth: 11.5 million light years.
This was a tricky capture. Over 4 hours of data but some issues in post processing that had to be fixed.
Messier 106 steals the show on this picture but it’s not the only visible galaxy. On the lower right you can see NGC 4217 and other smaller galaxies scattered around.
There is no better way to show the colossal scale of the universe than imaging interacting galaxies. These enormous galaxies are light years separated but still gravitationally impact each other in different ways.
The most impressive one is the Whirlpool Galaxy where we can see in detail how M51 and NGC 5195 are in full collision.
The Whale galaxy & NGC 4656
The Leo Triplet
The Whirlpool Galaxy
Jupiter & Venus are in conjunction now, next time this happens will be in 2032. Imaging our sister planet is very hard but it’s a good excuse for me to take out the 8 inch dob and go old-school planetary mode.
This globular cluster is traveling above our galactic plane, some 33.000 light years away from earth.
It is estimated to have around half a million stars in it.
