Hickson 44 Galaxy Group (Vince Castello)

Hickson 44 Galaxy Group

The image is of the Hickson 44 Galaxy Group. It is on the edge of the Virgo Supercluster of galaxies. The Canadian astronomer Paul Hickson and colleagues identified some 100 compact groups of galaxies, this one being the 44th. The four prominent galaxies seen in this image are about 70-80 million light-years distant, toward the constellation Leo (see the annotated image). The two spiral galaxies in the center of the image are edge-on NGC 3190 with its distinctive, warped dust lanes, and the S-shaped NGC 3187, also showing significant tidal disruption of its arms. Along with the bright elliptical, NGC 3193 above and right of the center. The spiral in the lower left corner is NGC 3185, the 4th member of the Hickson group. Like other galaxies in Hickson groups, these show signs of distortion and enhanced star formation, evidence of a gravitational tug of war that will eventually result in galaxy mergers on a cosmic timescale. For scale, NGC 3190 is about 75,000 light-years across at the estimated distance of Hickson 44. There are many more galaxies in the field. Upon close inspection of the image and you will see the background also reveals a multitude of small distant galaxies, located hundreds of millions of light years away.
146 x 600 seconds of RGB, collected over several days in March and April. Total exposure time 24.3 hours, all processed in PixInsight.

NOVAC

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Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
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Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

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