NGC 3718, 3729 and Hickson 56 - family, friends, and distant relatives (Tom Gray)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa) · Contains: NGC 3718 · NGC 3729

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NGC 3718, 3729 and Hickson 56 - family, friends, and distant relatives

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NGC 3718, 3729 and Hickson 56 - family, friends, and distant relatives

The only night with any transparency for a while, but rather poor seeing. I'd hoped to have a bash at M104 before it gets too low, but a steady breeze from the south forced me to take shelter behind the north wall of the house. Ursa Major is positioned overhead, and after polar aligning, I sought out a new target.

Inspired by recent images of these interacting galaxies, I threw caution to the wind and despite poor seeing (~HDR 3.5), attempted to image NGC 3718 and 3729, barred spiral galaxies lying 40mLY away. Despite only an hour of data the central bar is visible together with the distortion of the spiral arms and dust lane in NGC 3718; NGC 3729 also shows signs of distortion from this interaction. A small quintet of galaxies, Hickson 56 lies below at ~400 mLY. Astrometry identifies many other lesser known galaxies in the frame.

This image would benefit from longer 300s exposures, and much more integration if conditions allow, but with mid-summer approaching I may need to leave this until later in the year. Stacked in ASTAP, I selected the best 60% frames for stacking and processing in Startools using a standard workflow.

These objects remind me of the many friends, neighbours and distant relatives that we have missed (or lost) during these sad and difficult times, and the hope that we can get back together soon.

Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope (SCT) Imagers
Altair Astro 183 M/C Hypercams
UK Astro-Imaging
Low-Cost Astrophotography

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4490329
PixInsight job	E92ARGASDTSDSZSUZ30NF9XTNXWUCG1J
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	11h33m03s.29
RA (top/left)	11h35m04s.25
RA (top/right)	11h30m51s.64
RA (bottom/right)	11h31m03s.78
RA (bottom/left)	11h35m13s.88

Dec (center)	+53°05′09″.7
Dec (top/left)	+53°20′11″.1
Dec (top/right)	+53°17′57″.10
Dec (bottom/right)	+52°49′58″.6
Dec (bottom/left)	+52°52′07″.8

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NGC 3718, 3729 and Hickson 56 - family, friends, and distant relatives

NGC 3718, 3729 and Hickson 56 - family, friends, and distant relatives

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NGC 3718, 3729 and Hickson 56 - family, friends, and distant relatives

NGC 3718, 3729 and Hickson 56 - family, friends, and distant relatives

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