Abell 1185, Including The Guitar and Ambartsumian's Knot (George Simon)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa) · Contains: NGC 3536 · NGC 3539 · NGC 3550 · NGC 3552 · NGC 3558 · NGC 3561 · the Guitar

Abell 1185, Including The Guitar and Ambartsumian's Knot, George Simon

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Abell 1185, Including The Guitar and Ambartsumian's Knot

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Abell 1185, Including The Guitar and Ambartsumian's Knot

Abell 1185 is a galaxy cluster in Ursa Major that lies about 400 million light years from Earth. While it spans a healthy million light years, it is only a small part of the much larger Leo Supercluster. Interestingly, Abell 1185 contains a population of globular clusters that appear to belong to the cluster as a whole, rather than to any particular member galaxies.

The aesthetic standout of Abell 1185 is The Guitar, which can be seen just left of center in my image. This feature is the product of the interaction of spiral galaxy NGC 3561B, whose nucleus is the upper yellow "spot" in the "body" of The Guitar, and elliptical galaxy NGC 3561A, whose nucleus is the lower yellow "spot." The interaction between these two galaxies is producing numerous tidal streams, the longest of which forms the "neck" of The Guitar. At least two dwarf galaxies have formed out of the material in these tidal streams. The larger of these can be seen at the top of the "neck." The other, called Ambartsumian's Knot, is the tiny dot just below NGC 3561A.

Located near the center of Abell 1185 is the elliptical galaxy NGC 3550, which can be seen at the center of my image. If you take a look at the full-resolution version of the image, you will see that this galaxy has a triple nucleus, thought to be the result of recent galactic mergers. Eventually, the three nuclei will collapse into a single nucleus.

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Description: I reprocessed this data set from scratch, using a less aggressive kappa sigma clipping setting when I stacked my subs in DSS. The result was a higher SNR in the stacked image, which allowed me to perform a more aggressive stretch.

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Abell 1185, Including The Guitar and Ambartsumian's Knot

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