Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa)  ·  Contains:  NGC 3718  ·  NGC 3729
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NGC3718 & NGC3729, Peter Hannah
NGC3718 & NGC3729
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NGC3718 & NGC3729

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NGC3718 & NGC3729, Peter Hannah
NGC3718 & NGC3729
Powered byPixInsight

NGC3718 & NGC3729

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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 active 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 (Arp 322), a group of 5 galaxies of 15th and 16th magnitude, considerably further away at around 400 million light years.North is to the upper right in this image.

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NGC3718 & NGC3729, Peter Hannah