Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Hercules (Her)  ·  Contains:  NGC 6500  ·  NGC 6501
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NGC 6500 & NGC 6501, Gary Imm
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NGC 6500 & NGC 6501

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NGC 6500 & NGC 6501, Gary Imm
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NGC 6500 & NGC 6501

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Description

Back to the obscure for today's object! This unassuming pair of galaxies is located in the constellation of Hercules at a declination of +18 degrees.

NGC 6500, on the right, is a 12.5 magnitude spiral galaxy located 140 million light years away. It spans 1.5 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to an actual diameter of 70,000 light years. The faint outer edge of the galaxy below the core extends asymmetrically outward. The galaxy disk has interesting subtle color and structure variations.

NGC 6501, on the left, is an elliptical galaxy located slightly further away, at 150 million light years. This galaxy is slightly larger, at 80,000 light years in diameter.

Aside from the star stream extension of NGC 6500 mentioned above, I don’t see any signs of disturbance. I don’t believe that these galaxies are currently interacting, which would be consistent with their distance estimates.

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