NGC 1344 Galaxy in Fornax

NGC 1344 is an apparently normal elliptical galaxy 60 million light-years distant in the southern constellation of Fornax.
It is roughly 5' x 3' in extend. Unusually, the bright central region is surrounded by a complex grouping of interleaving shells.
Further out is a diffuse halo that has a brighter rim toward the NW. The opposite side of the halo is very faint but still visible in the inverted mage.
The bows of halo expands the apparent size of the galaxy to about 20 arc-min. The multiple shells are considered to be remnants of relatively recent galactic mergers, perhaps between a small disk system and a much larger elliptical galaxy.

NGC 1344 is one of the best examples of a shell galaxy and its discovery inspired research to understand why these features do not form around all types of galaxies

Image data:
LRGB (540-160-160-160 min) total 17 h, north is down, seeing 0.8-1.2 arc-sec,
80cm f/7 Astrooptik Keller cassegrain, FLI PL-16803, Astrodon LRGB GenII filters, Prompt 7 CTIO Chile

Processing: Johannes Schedler

Find the image in 25/70% size below and an inverted stretched version in same size at bottom

click for 70% size

click for 70% size

Last modified on Monday, 05 December 2016 15:34

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