Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Virgo (Vir)  ·  Contains:  IC 3578  ·  NGC 4567  ·  NGC 4568  ·  Siamese Twins

Image of the day 05/08/2020

    NGC 4567 & NGC 4568 - The Butterfly Galaxies (Siamese Twins), Michael Feigenbaum
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    NGC 4567 & NGC 4568 - The Butterfly Galaxies (Siamese Twins)

    Image of the day 05/08/2020

      NGC 4567 & NGC 4568 - The Butterfly Galaxies (Siamese Twins), Michael Feigenbaum
      Powered byPixInsight

      NGC 4567 & NGC 4568 - The Butterfly Galaxies (Siamese Twins)

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      To continue with the mini theme of colliding galaxies, here we have NGC4567 and NGC 4568, the Butterfly Galaxies, otherwise known as the Siamese Twins. These beautiful galaxies lie approximately 59 million light years away in Virgo and are a part of the Virgo Cluster. It had been thought that these two galaxies were not actually related but happened coincidentally to lie in the same line of site. Recent studies have shown that they are indeed in the process of merging.

      There is a region of star formation where the two are in contact and for that reason, I wanted to add some Ha to the project to see if I could show that. I think it does appear in the overlap area of the galaxies.

      The foregoing information was obtained from "constellation-guide.com".

      I have included a crop view and an wider field view of this subject. In the wide view, a large number of small galaxies can be seen. The most interesting to me and appearing in both images, is what appears to be a very diffuse galaxy immediately to the right of the Twins. I have not found any information about this one. Alos of interest is the elliptical or lenticular galaxy NGC 4564 to the left of The Twins. I caught some Ha data of that, somewhat surprisingly.

      I was given an opportunity to try out some software developed by Alex Woronow to aid in subframe weighting and selection. I used that tool during my pre-processing and it is outstanding. Thank you for allowing me the use of this Alex...

      I am fairly pleased with the image and as I always say, if I can improve a little with each one I am happy. I still have issues with the brighter stars but I think I will eventually be able to solve this problem and make better images. And I am still not convinced my collimation is as good as it should be.

      Anyway, I hope you like it and as always, comments and/or criticism are always welcome...

      Clear Skies and Good Health

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        NGC 4567 & NGC 4568 - The Butterfly Galaxies (Siamese Twins), Michael Feigenbaum
        Original
        NGC 4567 & NGC 4568 - The Butterfly Galaxies (Siamese Twins), Michael Feigenbaum
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      NGC 4567 & NGC 4568 - The Butterfly Galaxies (Siamese Twins), Michael Feigenbaum