This is an oddball galaxy in the M81 galaxy group, about 12 million light years away. Its less than a degree and a half away from M81 and sometimes shows up in wide field shots of M81 and M82. Might I suggest a nickname of the Oyster Galaxy? Is it pretty? No, I guess not, but it sure has an unusual appearance which is interesting on its own.
The galaxy is some sort of spiral, but seems to defy classification. I could find little to no hint of spiral structure in any of the images of this object in filter bands available at the CDS site that includes SIMBAD data at:
http://cdsportal.u-strasbg.fr/?target=NGC2976This site shows the spiral galaxy classification in SIMBAD as SAa.
The seeing wasn't very good on this night, so I captured at bin 2x2 and just gathered as much data as I could one night while this target was still accessible from my backyard to see what I could see. A faint extended halo, one arcing dark lane along with numerous dusty knots and red/pink/blue star forming regions everywhere there isn't a dusty knot in the way. Worth another look on a night with good seeing someday.
That little bluish thing next above and to the right of NGC 2976 is irregular galaxy LEDA 213630. I can't find distance data, but judging from the color, I suspect is a satellite of NGC 2976.
Each 8 minute sub for this image was itself a 240 x two second exposure live-stacked in SharpCap.
Comments