This object is a barred spiral galaxy located 90 million light years away in the constellation of Serpens at a declination of +14 degrees. This 12.4 magnitude galaxy spans 3.3 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to an actual diameter of 90,000 light years.
This is one of my favorite galaxies. The faint outer disk is transparent. There is a distinct transition to the translucent inner disk, which is dotted with star clusters and HII regions in the upper half. Some interesting faint outflow from the inner to the outer disk is seen at each end of the bar, especially at the top end, the start of what could be a set of spiral arms.
Of course, the star of the show here is the elongated, irregular bright white ring surrounding the core area. What is this weird bright thin ring? I haven’t seen anything similar in another galaxy. By my estimate the galaxy disk is 45 degrees to our apparent view, halfway between edge-on and face-on, so the elongation of this ring cannot be simply explained by our apparent view.
My best guess is that this ring started as a star formation ring surrounding the core, similar to what we see in
NGC 1343. A subsequent close encounter with a small companion, long since absorbed, could have both distorted the ring and kicked off additional star formation, as we see in the top half of the inner region.
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