Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Aquarius (Aqr)  ·  Contains:  IC 1438  ·  IC 1439
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IC 1438 and IC 1439, Gary Imm
IC 1438 and IC 1439, Gary Imm

IC 1438 and IC 1439

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
IC 1438 and IC 1439, Gary Imm
IC 1438 and IC 1439, Gary Imm

IC 1438 and IC 1439

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Description

This Astrobin Debut Object is a pair of double ring spiral galaxies located in the constellation of Aquarius at a declination of -21 degrees. 

IC 1438 is a barred face-on double ring galaxy located 100 million light years away.  It spans 2 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of 70,000 light years.  This galaxy solves a question I had a few days ago about NGC 7428.  For that similar double ring galaxy, I was not sure why the inner ring was circular and the outer ring was oval.  I speculated that we were looking at the galaxy at an inclined angle, which caused the circular outer ring to look oval and the inner oval ring to look circular.  For this to be true, the bar would have to be causing the inner ring to be oval.  As seen in this apparent face-on galaxy, that seems to be exactly the case here. 

I like the bright ansae at each end of the bar in IC 1438.  A couple of faint bluish star clouds are also seen, next to each ansae.

IC 1439 is a similar double ring galaxy, although with no bar, and located much further away at 275 million light years. It spans 1.2 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of 100,000 light years. 

The interesting blue irregular galaxy on the left side of the image is LEDA 68484.  It is located 120 million light years away.  It spans 1.8 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of 60,000 light years.

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