This object is a group of 3 galaxies, all magnitude 13 and located about 160 million light years away, in the constellation of Ursa Major at a declination of +32 degrees. In his
Arp catalog, Dr. Arp classified this object into the category of Groups of Galaxies. I believe that the largest 2 galaxies here are interacting. This image is a tight crop because of a bright magnitude 6 star - HD 103928, just off frame.
The largest galaxy is NGC 3995. This galaxy spans 2.5 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of 120,000 light years. This galaxy has an amazing structure, with a lot of interaction and star formation as evidenced by the many bright blue clusters. We appear to be looking at it from near edge-on, and it is fascinating to see the bright blue arms being twisted out of plane. I just love the tiny white star clumps which snake through space tracing a very rough path around the outer circumference.
The tiny orange edge-on spiral galaxy just to the left appears to be very distant. No distance information is available for this object, but my guess based on its structure is that it is about 1 billion light years away.
The galaxy just above is NGC 3994, about 60,000 light years in diameter. It does not seem to be interacting, since its lack of both deformation and blue color indicates that it is not very disturbed.
The galaxy to the upper left is NGC 3991, also about 60,000 light years in diameter. This is an odd linear shape, perhaps an edge-on view of a severely disturbed spiral galaxy. It has a bright blue region at the lower left end, distinctly different in color from the white section that extends up and to the right.
The small faint galaxy to the lower right is LEDA 1988828.
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