Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Hydra (Hya)  ·  Contains:  NGC 3124
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 3124 - Counter-rotating Arms, Gary Imm
NGC 3124 - Counter-rotating Arms, Gary Imm

NGC 3124 - Counter-rotating Arms

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 3124 - Counter-rotating Arms, Gary Imm
NGC 3124 - Counter-rotating Arms, Gary Imm

NGC 3124 - Counter-rotating Arms

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

This Astrobin Debut Object is a barred spiral galaxy located 165 million light years away in the constellation of Hydra at a declination of -19 degrees.  It is a magnitude 12.5 galaxy which spans 2 arc-minutes in our apparent view.  This corresponds to a diameter of 100,000 light years.

This galaxy has a unique arm structure that is a bit hard to see at first.  The outer blue arms indicate that the inner region is rotating in a counter clockwise direction.  However, the inner yellow bar is deformed such that the core appears to be rotating in the opposite (clockwise) direction.  I don’t believe I have seen another galaxy display such behavior.

I have imaged several other galaxies with counter-rotating disks, thought to be due to a galaxy merger in each case.  But in those cases the rotational directions were measured and were not as visually obvious as they are here.  3 examples are M64, NGC 3593and NGC 3626.

The arms themselves are a bit odd, especially the “X” fragment towards the bottom of the disk.

As I have said many times, I wish I understood these objects better.

The field surrounding this object is filled with an unusual number of double stars.

Comments