This
Astrobin Debut Object is a barred grand design spiral galaxy located 100 million light years away in the constellation of Hydra at a declination of -21 degrees. It is a magnitude 10 galaxy which spans 3.5 arc-minutes in our apparent view. This corresponds to a diameter of 105,000 light years. We are seeing this galaxy about halfway between edge-on and face-on.
I am very surprised that this fairly large, colorful,
grand design spiral galaxy has not been imaged on Astrobin before now. It has a number of interesting characteristics:
- I love the
pseudo-ring around the outer edge, forming more of a square than a circle.
- Note that the blue star clouds are only seen in the arms or in the pseudo-ring.
- Slight
VV row kinks are visible in the galaxy arms.
- Looking closely, the small bright core is actually a
nuclear star-forming ring.
- The nuclear ring is not quite centered within the bar.
Taking all of the above factors into consideration, this galaxy appears to be slightly disturbed even though no nearby disturbance companions are seen.
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