NGC 1961 (and associated galaxies forming a group) is the largest of the galaxies in this image. It is ~200 million light years distant, with a real extent over 220K light years in diameter. The galaxy shows a considerable amount of detail for its distance, with a twisted shape, lots of dust/gas in the core, and multiple arms. What I find most interesting about this image is not the nice field galaxies, but rather the Quasar IXO 29 which is captured in the field (nicely documented by Rubin Barbosa here:
https://www.astrobin.com/325957/?q=ngc%201961).
The distance to the quasar IXO 29 is 7.1 Billion light years (z=0.8414). See Rubin's excellent image/writeup for pinpointing the quasar location, and then you can locate it in my image. It's only a pinpoint, but with great significance in terms of how long ago that light started its journey towards us.
In this image, I elected to forego cropping too much to isolate NGC 1961, and elected to show off a wider field. There are plenty of nice spirals with their own odd shapes to match that of NGC 1961.
Comments