Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Boötes (Boo)  ·  Contains:  IC 1090  ·  NGC 5860
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NGC 5860, Gary Imm
NGC 5860, Gary Imm

NGC 5860

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 5860, Gary Imm
NGC 5860, Gary Imm

NGC 5860

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Description

This Astrobin Debut Object is a pair of colliding galaxies located 250 million light years away in the constellation of Bootes at a declination of +43 degrees.  The pair span 1 arc-minutes in our apparent view.  This corresponds to a width of 80,000 light years.

This object is fascinating to me, with its tidal star streams, blue and yellow separated cores, and common inner disk.  Usually by the time a merger has progressed to the point that the tails are this diffuse, the cores have merged.  In this case, the 2 cores (blue and yellow) still appear distinct.  I have not seen another merger object quite like this one.

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