Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Cetus (Cet)  ·  Contains:  IC 18  ·  IC 19
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Arp 100, Gary Imm
Arp 100, Gary Imm

Arp 100

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Arp 100, Gary Imm
Arp 100, Gary Imm

Arp 100

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Description

This object is a pair of interacting galaxies located 270 million light years away in the constellation of Cetus at a declination of -12 degrees. Dr. Arp classified this object in his Arp Catalogue in the category of “Spiral galaxies with elliptical companions”. IC 18 is the disturbed spiral galaxy at the center, while IC 19 is the elliptical galaxy below and slightly left of it.

The main disk of the spiral galaxy spans 1 arc-minute in our apparent view, which corresponds to an actual diameter of 80,000 light years. Its star stream extends for over 300,000 light years! I love star streams.

Almost as interesting as the star stream is the dark band which cuts through the galaxy, giving the appearance that the star stream is slicing the galaxy in half like a big cleaver.

This is one of those fields of view where the background galaxies far outnumber the foreground stars.

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