SUNSET: 
0
Photographer:
James Peirce
Location of Photo:
Skull Valley, Utah, United States
Date/Time of photo:
October 8, 2023
Equipment:
Celestron EdgeHD 8, 0.7x Reducer, ZWO ASI2600MM Pro, Astronomik UV/IR L2 and Deep-Sky Filters, Rainbow Astro RST-135E
Description:
Arp 273 or “A Rose Made of Galaxies”—I just think of them as “the Rose Galaxies”—are at least two interacting galaxies some 300 million light years away in the constellation Andromeda. UGC 1810, the “upper” galaxy, contains about five times more mass than its neighbor, UGC 1813, the “lower” galaxy. UGC 1813 is thought to have passed through, if not simply near, its neighbor, and through this interaction the two have tidally distorted into a rose-like shape. It appears at least a third galaxy (the warm “star”-sized blip in vaguely discernible swirling at the “top” of UGC 1810 in this perspective) may also be involved. Along the top of UGC 1810 are splinters of blue jewel-like structures comprised of young blue stars. UGC 1813 shows signs of intense star formation, possibly triggered by this interaction. The bright stars littered across this image are inside our own galaxy, and plenty more galaxies are littered about. Arp 273 was first described in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, produced by Halton Arp (hence Arp 273) and released in 1966.
