SUNSET: 
0
Photographer:
Peter Hannah
Location of Photo:
IC Astronomy, Oria, Spain
Date/Time of photo:
May 2024
Equipment:
Planewave CDK 14, 10Micron GM2000 mount, FLI Proline P9000 CCD camera, Astrodon LRGB filters
Description:
NGC3718 (centre) is a spiral galaxy with a distinctive twist, found in Ursa Major just south of the Plough. Also designated Arp 214, the mag 10.7 galaxy is 9.2 x 4.4 arcminutes in size. The Arp Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies notes it to be a Seyfert galaxy, meaning it has a very bright core. The second-largest galaxy in the image is NGC3729, also a spiral. Both are classed as barred spirals, though the Arp atlas notes that the bar in 3718 is a dust lane rather than being stellar in nature. The two galaxies lie at a similar distance - about 40 million light years - and are probably interacting, which may have caused the distortion in NGC 3718. To the south (lower left) of NGC3718 is Hickson 56, a group of 5 galaxies considerably further away at around 400 million light years.
