This object consists of two interacting galaxies located 50 million light years away in the constellation of Leo. One galaxy is a large spiral galaxy (NGC 3227), almost 100,000 light years in diameter, and the other is a smaller elliptical galaxy (NGC 3226). A large dark dust area is seen just above the core of the larger galaxy. Faint tidal star streams extend in arcs and loops around the galaxies due to their gravitational encounter. An interesting faint tidal stream is seen well left of the galaxy pair.
A closeup of this object is shown
here.
Several small but fascinating galaxies appear in the background. At lower left is a similar but visually much smaller spiral and elliptical interacting galaxy pair (PGC 30526 and 1617526). On the left side of the image is a beautiful face-on spiral galaxy (PGC 1622673). The bright galaxy NGC 3222 is directly above the center of the image, and just to the right of this galaxy is a cluster of at least 5 galaxies for which I could not find any designation. In the upper right corner is another bright galaxy (PGC 30388). About 30 other faint galaxies are scattered around the background.
Comments