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Astrobin Debut Object is a galaxy group located in the constellation of Pisces at a declination of +32 degrees. There is confusion over the NGC designations of the brightest galaxy in the image. I am using NGC 296, which is the consensus, but SIMBAD and others call this galaxy NGC 295.
This group of galaxies is not really a “group”. The two inclined spirals to the lower right, NGC 296 and UGC 565, are both about 180 million light years away but don’t appear close enough to each other to be interacting.
NGC 296 is a beautiful grand design spiral, with a yellow slightly barred core, distinct arms extending 360 degrees around the circumference, and faint blue star clouds. This galaxy spans 2 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a Milky Way like diameter of 120,000 light years.
The 3 galaxies to the upper left – UGC 566, UGC 567, and LEDA 1962194 – are all further away at about 280 million light years, although again neither appears close enough to each other to be interacting.
The two most interesting galaxies in the image do not have a designation. I have marked them each with a “?” in the mouseover. Each is well disturbed. The galaxy at the center of the image looks like a comet. It seems like it could be a distant object of 2 galaxies merging, with an extended long star stream tail. At the upper left of the image, the other ”?” indicated a galaxy that could be a companion to LEDA 1962194, although that seems unlikely since that galaxy is fairly undisturbed.
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