Saturnebula!

Just when I think the good images of galaxies are starting to dry up, this comes along. For those who aren't aware, the Hubble Space Telescope had been offline. After having been brought back online, this was one of the first images (within the first couple of days, at any rate) captured - a pair of gravitationally interacting galaxies known as ARP 147. A spectacular pair of ring-shaped galaxies, one face on, one nearly perpendicular to our viewpoint. This is an APOD image, you can click through for more explanation and a higher resolution view, as always.

Friday Galactic Blogging

That's quite a bridge! 22,000 light years long and spanning the gap between the galaxies NGC 5216 and NGC 5218, known collectively as ARP 104. Obviously in close a gravitational relationship, these two galaxies look appear to be in the process of tearing each other up, probably to merge in the next hundred thousand years or so. They're relatively close to us at a distance of about seventeen million light years in the direction of the Big Dipper. It's an APOD image, and you know what to do.

Friday Galactic Blogging

This is one of the most memorable galactic images I've seen. Two vivid spirals, obviously interacting with each other, each in its own plane. What a beautiful sight. Collectively known as Arp 271, they comprise another selection in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies. Also designated as NGC 5426 and NGC 5427 the pair is about ninety million light years away and spans about 130,000 light years. Click the image for the APOD page, click the image there for a closer view,

Friday Galactic Blogging

This nicely situated galactic collision is close enough and oriented such that we have an extremely good, detailed snapshot of the ongoing interaction between two apparently merging galaxies. One hundred million light years away, it's almost in our neighborhood (the furthest visible galaxies are thirteen billion light years distant), located in the Hydra-Centaurus supercluster, the nearest supercluster except for our own.