Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Aquarius (Aqr)  ·  Contains:  NGC 6959  ·  NGC 6961  ·  NGC 6962  ·  NGC 6963  ·  NGC 6964  ·  NGC 6967
NGC 6962 Galaxy Group, Gary Imm
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NGC 6962 Galaxy Group

NGC 6962 Galaxy Group, Gary Imm
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NGC 6962 Galaxy Group

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Description

This object is a rarely imaged galaxy group located 180 million light years away in the constellation of Aquarius at a declination of 0 degrees.

The namesake galaxy is the large spiral galaxy near the center of the image, NGC 6962. The galaxy spans almost 3 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of nearly 150,000 light years. The galaxy appears barred at first glance, but closer inspection confirms its classification as a non-barred spiral galaxy. The companion galaxy just above and right of NGC 6962 is the elliptical galaxy NGC 6964. I do not see too much gravitational disturbance to either galaxy from the interaction, although NGC 6962 has an asymmetric disk. These two galaxies seem like a perfect fit for an Arp catalog entry but were not chosen for it.

Aside from the many stellar-like distant galaxies in this image, most of the galaxies here are about the same distance away as NGC 6962. Some of these galaxies have interesting structures. My favorite is NGC 6959, which is about halfway between the center of the image and the lower left corner. The galaxy core is surrounding by two stellar-like objects, one on either side of the core in line with the galaxy disk. It is a unique look, although I believe that these two objects are just foreground stars and are not related to the galaxy.

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