Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Coma Berenices (Com)  ·  Contains:  NGC 4613  ·  NGC 4614  ·  NGC 4615  ·  PGC 1762555
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Arp 34, Gary Imm
Arp 34, Gary Imm

Arp 34

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Arp 34, Gary Imm
Arp 34, Gary Imm

Arp 34

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Description

This object is a galaxy trio located 210 million light years away in the constellation of Coma Berenices at a declination of +26 degrees. The trio is believed to be interacting.

The star of the show here is NGC 4615, a distorted grand spiral. Star formation has initiated from the trio’s interaction in the form of brilliant bright blue star clusters in each of the arms. This galaxy spans 1.5 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to an actual diameter of 90,000 light years.

The two barred spiral galaxies are NGC 4613 at top, 30,000 light years in diameter, and NGC 4614 at bottom, 60,000 light years diameter. The arms of NGC 4614 form a perfectly circular outer ring. Surprisingly, neither of these smaller galaxies appears as distorted as the larger NGC 4615.

Of all of the images I have taken, this one probably has the lower star-to-galaxy ratio of any. Few stars appear, while faint galaxies are everywhere in the background. The orange fuzzy at upper right, galaxy PGC 1762555 in the mouseover, is about 2 billion light years away. Just to the right of it, on the edge of the image, is a tiny spot of light which is a 20th magnitude quasar that is about 2.5 billion light years away.

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