The oddest member of the Leo Triplet

Eso_potw1026a_1024

eso_potw1026a June 28th, 2010

Credit: ESO

NGC 3628 is a spiral galaxy and a member of a small, but conspicuous group of galaxies located about 35 million light-years away, toward the constellation of Leo (the Lion). The other distinguished members of this family, known collectively as the Leo Triplet, are two well-known prominent spiral galaxies, Messier 65 and Messier 66 (not seen on the image), which were both discovered in 1780 by famous French comet hunter Charles Messier. NGC 3628 is the faintest of the trio and escaped Messier’s observations with his rather small telescope. It was discovered and catalogued by William Herschel only four years later. NGC 3628 hides its spiral structure because it is seen perfectly edge-on, exactly as we observe the Milky Way on a clear night. Its most distinctive feature is a dark band of dust that lies across the plane of the disc and which is visibly distorted outwards, as a consequence of the gravitational interaction between NGC 3628 and its bullying companions. This boxy or “peanut-shaped” bulge, seen as a faint X-shape, is formed mainly of young stars and gas and dust, which create the bulge away from the plane of the rest of the galaxy through their powerful motions. Because of its appearance, NGC 3628 was catalogued as Arp 317 in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, published in 1966, which aimed to characterise a large sample of odd objects that fell outside the standard Hubble classification, to aid understanding of how galaxies evolve. The depth of the image reveals a myriad of galaxies of different shapes and colours, some of which lie much further away than NGC 3628. Particularly noticeable is the fuzzy blob just in the centre of the image, which is a diffuse satellite galaxy. A number of globular clusters can be seen as fuzzy reddish spots in the halo of the galaxy. Also visible as bright spots near the lower edge of the image (the two blue star-like objects below the satellite galaxy) are two quasars, the central engines of distant and very energetic galaxies, billions of light-years away. This image has been taken with the FORS2 instrument, attached to one of the ESO Very Large Telescope’s Unit Telescopes. It is a combination of exposures taken through different filters (B, V and R), for a total exposure time of just below one hour. The field of view is about 7 arcminutes across, which is why this large galaxy does not fit into the image. Links Image of Messier 66

Provider: European Southern Observatory

Image Source: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1026a/

Curator: European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
NGC 3628
Subject - Local Universe
Galaxy > Type > Spiral
Eso_potw1026a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 11h 20m 13.3s
DEC = 13° 33’ 21.6”
Orientation
North is 1.6° CW
Field of View
6.8 x 5.3 arcminutes
Constellation
Leo

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Green VLT (FORS2) Optical (V) -
Red VLT (FORS2) Optical (R) -
Blue VLT (FORS2) Optical (B) -
Eso_potw1026a_1280
×
ID
potw1026a
Subject Category
C.5.1.1  
Subject Name
NGC 3628
Credits
ESO
Release Date
2010-06-28T10:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1026a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Distance in light years from ESO.
Facility
Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope
Instrument
FORS2, FORS2, FORS2
Color Assignment
Green, Red, Blue
Band
Optical, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
V, R, B
Central Wavelength
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
170.055544296, 13.5560067804
Reference Dimension
1280.0, 986.0
Reference Pixel
711.0, 393.0
Scale
-8.90931994108e-05, 8.90931994108e-05
Rotation
-1.57232678307
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
European Southern Observatory
URL
http://www.eso.org/
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City
Garching bei München
State/Province
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
European Southern Observatory
Publisher ID
eso
Resource ID
potw1026a
Metadata Date
2010-05-18T13:19:05+02:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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