This image captures a galaxy group of 5 galaxies, called Hickson 56 and Arp 322, located 400 million light years away in the constellation of Ursa Major at a declination of +53 degrees. This image is a tight FOV of 0.09 degrees.
This image is from the same subs that were used for this larger FOV image, shown
here, which includes the much larger (and closer) galaxies NGC 3718 and NGC 3729. I processed the subs separately for this smaller scale image and I cropped it to highlight this interesting Hickson object.
The right 4 galaxies of this group each appear disturbed and are apparently interacting with each other. The largest galaxy, the edge-on spiral at left, is a Milky Way like 120,000 light years in diameter.
The mouseover shows a comparison between this image and Dr. Arp’s original image, taken with the largest telescope at that time in the 1960s. My complete 338 object Arp catalog is shown
here, while my almost complete Hickson collection is shown
here.
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