This
Astrobin Debut Object is a collisional ring galaxy located 0.75 billion light years away in the constellation of Sextans at a declination of -9 degrees. This magnitude 15 object spans 25 arc-seconds in our apparent view, a little more than half of the current size of Venus. It is 100,000 light years in diameter. This object is just 1 degree southwest of NGC 3115, the Spindle Galaxy (one of many with this nickname).
Collisional ring galaxies are my favorite DSO object. This object is one of the best at showing the collision process, as seen in the annotated mouseover. The companion has impacted the main galaxy and is moving to the right. The expanding density wave from the impact has initiated star formation in the outer rim of the main. A bright star stream connects the companion with its impact point. A faint star cloud has formed from the collision and is also moving to the right. Note that this description is simply my conjecture, but
this paper backs up the belief that it is a collisional ring galaxy.
This is a Seyfert I galaxy and is the most luminous ring galaxy that I have seen. The faint irregular galaxy (MCG-01-26-011) at lower left is 30 times closer to us.
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