Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Cetus (Cet)  ·  Contains:  IC 1696  ·  NGC 530  ·  NGC 535  ·  NGC 538  ·  NGC 541  ·  NGC 543  ·  NGC 545  ·  NGC 547  ·  NGC 548
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Abell 194  (with Arp 133 &  Arp 308), Gary Imm
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Abell 194 (with Arp 133 & Arp 308)

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Abell 194  (with Arp 133 &  Arp 308), Gary Imm
Powered byPixInsight

Abell 194 (with Arp 133 & Arp 308)

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Description

This image captures many galaxies and interesting objects located in the constellation of Cetus at a declination of -1 degree. The galaxies belong to Abell 194 and are at a distance of about 230 million light years. The image spans 30 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a span of about 2 million light years.

The bright pair of side-by-side elliptical galaxies towards the lower right corner of the image is Arp 308, consisting of NGC 545 and NGC 547. Arp put this object into the category of "unclassified objects", which isn't particularly enlightening. These galaxies look to be close enough to each other to be gravitationally interacting but I haven't been able to confirm that.

Just above and left of Arp 308 is a large lenticular galaxy, NGC 541, which Arp classified as Arp 133 in the category of "Galaxies with Nearby Fragments". This galaxy is about 130,000 light years in diameter. In this case, the Arp category description IS enlightening. The "fragment" is the blue object just below and right, which is also known as Minkowski's Object. The object, a star forming peculiar galaxy, is clearly seen in the full resolution view and is undergoing a large burst in star formation. The burst is believe to be initiated by a radio jet emerging from the core of NGC 541. This jet-induced star formation phenomenon has also been seen in other objects such as Centaurus A. This object is named for the German astronomer Dr. Rudolph Minkowski, who discovered it in 1958.

Many other fascinating galaxies, galaxy clusters and quasars are visible in the image. The faint galaxy cluster just below the center of the image is about 5 billion light years away.

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