Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Pisces (Psc)  ·  Contains:  NGC 7714  ·  NGC 7715  ·  The star 16 Psc
Arp 284, Gary Imm
Arp 284, Gary Imm

Arp 284

Arp 284, Gary Imm
Arp 284, Gary Imm

Arp 284

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Description

This object is a pair of interacting spiral galaxies located 115 million light years away in the constellation of Pisces at a declination of +2 degrees.  The adjacent intense bright star in the foreground is the 5.6 magnitude star 16 Piscium, about 100 light years away.

NGC 7715 is seen edge on at the left and distorted NGC 7714 is on the right. Each of these galaxies is about 3 arc-minutes wide in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter for each of 100,000 light years. I find the twisting structure of NGC 7714 to be especially fascinating.  It is classified as a Wolf-Rayet starburst galaxy.  In fact, this galaxy was the very first to be labelled with the term "starburst galaxy".

I like the contrast between the yellow and blue colors in the image.  NGC 7714’s disk and stream is primarily yellow, indicating older stars, but blue star formation areas are seen both above and below the core. By comparison, NGC 7715’s distortion seem tame, although I find its core interesting in that it is not yellow but blue, and contains 3 bright blue star clouds. The galaxies are likely in the process of merging into a single galaxy, as indicated by the connected tidal star streams.

For comparison, here is the Hubble image of this object:
Arp284-Hubble-3.jpg

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