NGC 3718

[sdbodin]

Had a run of clear skies, it owes me, a lousy winter. This pair NGCs 3718/29, also called Arp 214, are high in the sky this time of year and a neat example of a highly disrupted galaxy and companion, who might be a suspect in some of the disruption. Seeing was good with no wind, but transparency seemed a bit thick, maybe a bit of hi-cirrus, temp 39F. That neat little Hickson group just south was, unfortunately, just outside my FOV.

Data; Meade 16 LX200 at f6.2 for 2500mm efl, Atik 460ex mono, 9/5min lum, 2/5min RGB all 2x2 binned for 0.7"/pixel resolution. OAG with QHY5L-II at 4 sec rate on a fainter than desired star and PHD was giving me way too many beeps. Final image just edge cropped and full size. The real fainter outer wisps are just visible, it would take another 3-4 hours of exposure to bring those out, way longer than my attention span.

Clear skies,
Steve

[Juno16]

Another beautiful image Steve!

Glad that you have had this nice stretch!

[TheButcher]

Awesome, Very Nice Detail!

[STEVE333]

Pretty cool Steve. The little one in the upper left corner looks like a powder blue sombrero!

Thanks for the nice closeup.

Steve

[Ken_nneth]

Beautiful, I really like the star colors. Thanks for sharing.
Clear Skies

[MariusD69]

Awesome! Great job, Steve!

[Makuser]

Hello Steve. A fantastic image from you here. Nice contrast and details including the dark dust lane clouds. Thanks for sharing your wonderful capture with us Steve, and keep up this great work.

[Gordon]

Congratulations Steve, on having your image selected as todays TSS APOD!!

app.php/article/3-21-2020-tss-astrophot ... of-the-day

[Graeme1858]

Great image Steve. The stars that have been pulled away from the galaxy make it look quite ethereal.

Congratulations on the APOD.

Regards

Graeme

[Jockinireland]

That is just stunning.

[Ruud]

Congratulations with the APOD award.
It's a fabulous image!

[sdbodin]

Thanks all for the kind comments,

As I looked more deeply into the image, one can see a group of very deep orange fuzzy, red shifted, objects between the little and big gals, I count about two dozen. Checking on SImbad, this is a cluster of distant galaxies with red shift, z=0.2542, about 3 billion light years in the distance, if I calculated correctly.

Pure chance, I set a new personal distance record, previous was 1 billionish which I searched out on purpose.

So, keep on looking, never know what will turn up.
Steve

[TheButcher]

Congrats Steve! Awesome image!

[notFritzArgelander]

Wonderful image. Not only is it beautiful esthetically but its also astrophysically interesting. It doesn't get better than that.

[helicon]

Congrats on winning the APOD Steve - that's a stunning image!

[jthommes]

Beatific image Steve - Congrats.