Hamburger Galaxy (NGC 3628), Jim Meeker

Hamburger Galaxy (NGC 3628)

Hamburger Galaxy (NGC 3628), Jim Meeker

Hamburger Galaxy (NGC 3628)

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Description

This is the first picture I took with TCAA's gear. It was last summer during the June Public Observing Session. The Hamburger Galaxy NGC 3628 in Leo. Reprocessed tonight (2/2/14) even though it's only one Luminance frame. You can also see IC 2745 in the upper right corner and the trails of two different satellites that tried to ruin my fun. They didn't succeed.

Also known as Sarah's Galaxy, NGC 3628 is an unbarred spiral galaxy discovered by William Herschel in 1784. It is about 35 million light-years away in the constellation Leo and is similar in size to our Milky Way.

Seen edge on, NGC 3628 is a remarkable, obviously disturbed galaxy. Its disk fans out near the galaxy’s edge while a broad equatorial dust band obscures the galaxy’s bright central region, and hides most of the bright young stars in its spiral arms.

Along with M65 and M66 it forms the famous Leo Triplet, a triple group of galaxies. The gravitational pull of these neighboring galaxies has most likely tipped the plane of NGC 3628, and made its central dust lane “wobbled” in appearance.

You can't see it in this image but there is an almost 300,000 light-year long tidal tail that extends up and to the left. The distorted shape and tidal tail suggests once again that NGC 3628 is interacting gravitationally with the other spiral galaxies in the Leo Triplet.

I'm really looking forward to shooting this with the 20".

Image acquired at Sugar Grove Observatory, a facility of Twin City Amateur Astronomers (tcaa.us).

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Hamburger Galaxy (NGC 3628), Jim Meeker