Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Coma Berenices (Com)  ·  Contains:  NGC 4298  ·  NGC 4302
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NGC 4298 and NGC 4302, rhedden
NGC 4298 and NGC 4302
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NGC 4298 and NGC 4302

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 4298 and NGC 4302, rhedden
NGC 4298 and NGC 4302
Powered byPixInsight

NGC 4298 and NGC 4302

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Description

NGC 4298 and 4302 are 11th to 12th magnitude galaxies in Coma Berenices. Alhough both are at a distance of 50 to 60 million light years, there is little if any visual indication that they are interacting. NGC 4298 is the face-on galaxy, and NGC 4302 is the edge-on galaxy. In a way, they remind me of M66 and NGC 3628 in the Leo Triplet, except they are much closer together in the sky, being separated by only about 4 arcminutes.

Although this pair is a challenging target, I am not too pleased with this image,which could have been much sharper under better conditions. The seeing was consistently below average on the nights when data were acquired. In addition, my autoguiding was marginal due to lack of a bright guide star nearby. Since these galaxies are rarely imaged, I'm posting them anyway. Hopefully some of you will try imaging them and do better.

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