NGC 2442 Meathook Galaxy

NGC 2442 Meathook Galaxy

In the constellation of Volans, located in the southern hemisphere, you can find a galaxy called NGC 2442 that appears to have a distorted appearance. This galaxy, which is approximately 50 million light-years away from us, features two spiral arms extending from a bright bar-shaped core, giving it a hooked appearance.

The image reveals scattered foreground stars throughout. Additionally, the image showcases the yellowish core of this distant galaxy, composed of older generations of stars, as well as surrounding regions of obscuring dust, young blue star clusters, and reddish stellar nurseries. However, the star-forming regions appear to be more concentrated in the stretched (lower-right) spiral arm of the galaxy. The distorted structure of the galaxy is likely the result of a close interaction with a smaller galaxy situated in the upper-right region of the field of view. Based on estimations of the distance to NGC 2442, these two interacting galaxies are separated by approximately 150,000 light-years.

Planewave CDK 17"
SBIG STXL 11002 with AOX
Paramount ME
LRGB
Total integration time: 21hr
Location: El Sauce, Chile
Software: PixInsight, Photoshop