This interesting tiny
Astrobin Debut Object is a pair of interacting galaxies located 0.4 billion light years away in the constellation of Bootes at a declination of +14 degrees. Somehow this fascinating object escaped Dr. Arp’s inclusion into his peculiar galaxy catalog.
The main object at center is a magnitude 14 ring spiral galaxy. Its bright orange core is surrounded by a wavy ring. The ring spans 0.7 arc-minutes in our apparent view. This corresponds to a diameter of 80,000 light years. One of the highlights of this image for me is the diffuse nature of the upper edge of this ring.
Above and below the plane of this ring extends a pair of disturbed star streams. At the end of the upper star stream is a small elliptical galaxy, LEDA 200319, which is 30,000 light years in diameter. At first I thought that this small orange object was simply a superimposed foreground Milky Way star, but SIMBAD confirms that it is a galaxy.
Star stream bridges are fascinating to me. Follow the star stream as it forms a backward S, extending from the elliptical galaxy, down to the core of the spiral, and then straight down. As such, I have assigned this object to my Astrobin Collection of
Merging Galaxies Stage B (short bridge).Below this object is the galaxy LEDA 52792. It is more interesting than it first appears, because it has a bar, an inner ring, and a very faint outer ring.
Finally, many background galaxies pepper the background. especially in the lower left quadrant. Most are located between 2 and 4 billion light years away. In this image, the galaxies far outnumber the stars.
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