Canon 350D Hap Griffin Baader Mod
56x180sec at iso 1600
30 Darks/Flats/Bias
Celestron 9.25 reduced 0.63

60% Crop

Astronomy Magazine Picture of the Day July 14, 2009

NGC 3718 (Arp 214) is a strongly warped spiral galaxy that is gravitationally interacting with it's neighbor, NGC 3729, which is only 150 thousand light years from it's companion. The pair is approximately 42.5 million light years distant.

NGC 3718 contains an active galactic nucleus (AGN) and is known as a Seyfert type 1.9 galaxy. HI mapping of the galaxy shows a suggestion of a tidal tail that starts on the eastern side of the galaxy and extends north towards its companion NGC 3729 strongly suggesting a gravitational relationship between the two galaxies.

Below NGC 3718 and 300 million light years distant is compact galaxy group Hickson 56, also carrying an Arp designation (322) comprised of five closely interacting galaxies, two of which are radio sources.

Members of Hickson 56 from left to right in this image:
MCG 9-19-113 (edge-on spiral) Mag=14.78
UGC 6527 (barred lenticular) Mag=14.69
PGC 35618 (lenticular, peculiar) Mag=15.82
PGC 35615 (spiral, peculiar) Mag=17.01
PGC 35609 (barred lenticular, peculiar) Mag=16.37

There are also multiple faint distant galaxies peppering the entire image, particularly the large cluster between the upper poles of NGC 3718 and NGC 3729. To the upper left of NGC 3729, the brightest members (mag 19) of distant galaxy Cluster MaxBCG J173.61398+53.22685 (z=0.232 / light travel time = 2.6 Gyr) are visible.

February 22, 2009