Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa)  ·  Contains:  NGC 2976
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NGC 2976, Gary Imm
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NGC 2976

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NGC 2976, Gary Imm
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NGC 2976

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Description

This interesting object is a galaxy located 12 million light years away in the constellation of Ursa Major. It is a dwarf satellite galaxy of M81. The galaxy is 5 arc-minutes long in our apparent view and has a diameter of about 20,000 light years.

This may be the strangest galaxy structure I have ever imaged. I don't see any real evidence of a core or arms. I see dust lanes, star clusters, and HII regions, but it is all jumbled up as if some cosmic giant dumped the galaxy into a blender and churned it into a frothy football shape. As opposed to the inner region, the outer region of the galaxy is diffuse with no structure.

Particularly interesting to me is the wide dark dust lane which arcs along the bottom of the galaxy in this image.

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