Hubble Legacy Archive Data Arp 243

Hubble Legacy Data - Wide Field Camera 3 data in R/G and UV mapped to R/G and B by me and generally tidied up in PixInsight and PhotoShop.

 

Two colliding spiral galaxies - showing extreme distortion due to gravitational tides. The bright blue regions are "star burst" regions where intense star formation is occurring as gravitational tides compress gas clouds and produce massive, hot blue stars.

 

This is what the future may hold for us when the Milky Way collides with Andromeda in a few billion years.

 

This is NGC 2623 in the New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (abbreviated as NGC) - a catalogue of deep-sky objects compiled by John Louis Emil Dreyer in 1888.

 

Dreyer didnt appreciate that these are 2 colliding objects so only one ID was given, Its also Arp 243 in Milton Arp's catalogue of peculiar or colliding galaxies which is probably more appropriate.

 

Image credit -NASA/ESA/Hubble Team/John Purvis

 

 

Red: hst_9735_32_acs_wfc_f814w_sci

Green: hst_9735_32_acs_wfc_f555w_sci

Blue: hst_9735_32_acs_wfc_f435w_sci

Done