This
Astrobin Debut Object is a galaxy quartet located 0.5 billion light years away in the constellation of Ursa Major at a declination of +56 degrees. All of these 4 galaxies are the same distance away.
The most interesting galaxy in the group is at upper left, UGC 8696. The horizontal star stream which extends to the left is 140,000 light years long. The main body of this Seyfert galaxy spans 30 arc-seconds in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of 60,000 light years. This central area has a few dark regions which appear to be dust bands. Also, an interesting faint wide star stream extends up and slightly right from this galaxy.
What is causing this long star stream? None of the other 3 galaxies in the image appear disturbed, so I don’t think that any of them are the source of the disturbance. Instead, I think that UGC 8696 is a late stage galaxy merger. We may be looking at the merged core of 2 former galaxies. Its appearance is similar to other objects in my
Late Stage Galaxy Collection, such as
Arp 193.
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