Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cancer (Cnc)  ·  Contains:  NGC 2560  ·  NGC 2562
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NGC 2560 Galaxy Group, Gary Imm
NGC 2560 Galaxy Group, Gary Imm

NGC 2560 Galaxy Group

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NGC 2560 Galaxy Group, Gary Imm
NGC 2560 Galaxy Group, Gary Imm

NGC 2560 Galaxy Group

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Description

This Astrobin Debut Object is a galaxy group located in the constellation of Cancer at a declination of +21 degrees.  The 4 main galaxies here are annotated in my mouseover. 

This is not a galaxy cluster.  Even though a few of the galaxies look disturbed, the galaxies are far enough apart that they are not interacting with each other.

The highlight here is the fascinating yellow edge-on spiral, UGC 4322.  This is a magnitude 15 Seyfert galaxy located 250 million light years away.  It spans 1.7 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a Milky Way size diameter of 120,000 light years.  Both the dark lane and the galaxy itself appear to weave around each other, like a couple of ribbons dancing in the wind, until they become aligned at lower right. Looking closely, 2 separate dust lanes (not quite parallel) are visible on the left side of the disk.  This disk has been studied by several papers but I have not found a satisfying explanation for this unique shape.             

To the upper right is another interesting galaxy, UGC 4329.  It is a low surface brightness blue face-on spiral galaxy located 190 million light years away.  This magnitude 14 galaxy spans 2 arc-minutes in our apparent view and is the same size as UGC 4322, at 120,000 light years.   The galaxy arms are traceable but discontinuous along their length.

At upper left is the bright yellow magnitude 13, NGC 2562.  This lenticular galaxy is located 230 million light years away and is 60,000 light years in light.

At the bottom is the yellow edge-on spiral, NGC 2560, also located 230 million light years away.  Like the 2 UGC galaxies in the image, this galaxy is 120,000 light years in diameter.

The background looks like it is filled with stars, but most of these are actually orange distant galaxies.

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