SUNSET: 
0
Photographer:
KuriousGeorge
Location of Photo:
Julian, CA
Date/Time of photo:
January 21-27, 2023
Equipment:
Planewave CDK24
Description:
At a distance of about 79.5 million light years, NGC 2655 is a giant disk galaxy in the constellation Camelopardalis. The diameter of the disk of NGC 2655 is approximately 195,000 light years, while the mass of the galaxy's stellar population is estimated to be 200 billion solar masses. NGC 2655 is the brightest member of the NGC 2655 group, which includes seven galaxies brighter than −15 mag, and all of them are of the late type. This suggests that the whole gas content of NGC 2655 could result from accumulating the surrounding dwarfs by the central galaxy. NGC 2655 has two exponential disks. These disks have different scale lengths and also different orientations of the isophote major axis. The internal and external rotation axes of the stellar disk of NGC 2655 are inclined to each other. NGC 2655 is a multi-spin galaxy. The orientations of the huge disk of neutral hydrogen and the outer stellar disk in NGC 2655 coincide with each other both spatially and kinematically. The outer gaseous disk lies within the outer stellar disk, and that even current star formation is taking place somewhere in it. A minor merger took place in NGC 2655. A small satellite galaxy struck the central part of NGC 2655 almost vertically about 10 million years ago.