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NGC 2207 & IC 2163
INTERACTING GALAXIES IN CANIS MAYOR (THE GREAT DOG)
(Image centered at: ra 06 h:17 m / dec - 21º 22')
March - 2024, Sarandí, Gualeguaychú, Entre Ríos, Argentina
DATA
TYPE: Colliding Spiral Galaxies
APPARENT DIAMETER: 4.4 arc minutes
APPARENT MAGNITUDE (V): 10.7
DISTANCE: 80 Million light years
IMAGE INFORMATION
INSTRUMENT: 6" ORION OPTICS UK (Ultra Grade Optics) w/Sky Watcher Coma Corrector (0.9x) working at at f4.5
CAMERA: QHY 183 MONO
MOUNT: VIXEN GDPX, OAG with Starlight Xpress Lodestar
FILTERS: BAADER LRGB Set
SKY CONDITIONS: rural skies - Bortle 4 - SQM 20.63
EXPOSURES: LRGB (90,45,45,45)
OBJECT DESCRIPTION AND IMAGE SESSION
Billions of years from now, only one of these two galaxies will remain. Until then, spiral galaxies NGC 2207 and IC 2163 will slowly pull each other apart, creating tides of matter, sheets of shocked gas, lanes of dark dust, bursts of star formation, and streams of cast-away stars. Astronomers predict that NGC 2207, the larger galaxy on the right, will eventually incorporate IC 2163, the smaller galaxy on the left. In the most recent encounter that about peaked 40 million years ago, the smaller galaxy is swinging around counter-clockwise, and is now slightly behind the larger galaxy. The space between stars is so vast that when galaxies collide, the stars in them usually do not collide. (*)
The galaxy pair are only in the first step of colliding and merging. Astronomers expect that in about a billion years time the process will be completed and both galaxies will become an elliptical galaxy or perhaps a disk galaxy. NGC 2207 and IC 2163 were discovered by English polymath mathematician astronomer Sir John Herschel in 1835 from Cape Town South Africa using a private 6.4 meter telescope.
(*) Text adapted from NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
NGC 2207 & IC 2163
INTERACTING GALAXIES IN CANIS MAYOR (THE GREAT DOG)
ANNOTATED IMAGE 100% RESOLUTION
