NGC 2442 The Meathook Galaxy (Terry Robison)

Image of the day 03/28/2018

NGC 2442 The Meathook Galaxy

56 million light years away, in the constellation of Volans, there is a dramatic lopsided intermediate spiral galaxy known as the Meathook Galaxy. Its asymmetric shape has one arm tightly folded in, while the other is dotted with star forming regions that extend far out from its galactic nucleus. These regions are trailing off to the left on the lower arm, and have a slightly pink and reddish colours.

The galaxy itself is around 110,000 light years across and is moving away from us at 1466 kilometres per second. I have always enjoyed looking at interesting shaped galaxies as usually have an interesting history. In this instance, around 200 million years ago, there may have been a gravitational interaction with the fuzzy galaxy to the lower right, AM 0738-692. If you look carefully, there is a fairly easy to spot almost edge background galaxy, around the two o’clock position.

Within inner region of NGC 2442, there is a background galaxy just popping through. I had to resort to some Hubble images to verify, and there it was. That is so cool to be able to see a galaxy through a closer galaxy. To locate it, draw a line from the core, moving outwards toward the 4:30 clock position, and there is what looks like a horizontal line perpendicular to the line you have just drawn out. It is very subtle. Another feature to help locate it, look at the ends of a forked brownish structure that connects back to the core of the galaxy. There are quite a few dim, far off galaxies throughout the frame.

Exposure Details

16 Blue Binned 2X2 – 450 Sec each

17 Green Binned 2X2 – 450 Sec each

19 Red Binned 2X2 – 450 Sec each

19 Lum Binned 1X2 – 900 Sec each

14 Ha Binned 1x1 – 1200 Sec

Instruments Used:

10 Inch RCOS fl 9.1

Astro Physics AP-900 Mount

SBIG STL 11000m

FLI Filter Wheel

Astrodon Lum, Red, Green, Blue Filters

Baader Planetarium H-alpha 7nm Narrowband-Filter

Astronomical Society of Victoria (ASV)
Objects of the South - negative declination only

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	1979246
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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Image of the day 03/28/2018

NGC 2442 The Meathook Galaxy

Image of the day 03/28/2018

NGC 2442 The Meathook Galaxy

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Image of the day 03/28/2018

NGC 2442 The Meathook Galaxy

Image of the day 03/28/2018

NGC 2442 The Meathook Galaxy

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