Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Lepus (Lep)  ·  Contains:  IC 2154  ·  NGC 2139
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 2139, Gary Imm
NGC 2139, Gary Imm

NGC 2139

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 2139, Gary Imm
NGC 2139, Gary Imm

NGC 2139

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

This Astrobin Debut Object is a face-on barred spiral galaxy located 120 million light years away in the constellation of Lepus at a declination of -24 degrees.  It is a magnitude 12 galaxy which spans 1.8 arc-minutes in our apparent view.  This corresponds to a diameter of 70,000 light years.

The structure of this galaxy is unusual.  The arms appear fragmented and disjointed, as if perhaps we are witnessing a merger in process.  However, no star streams are seen nearby, so I am confused about what we are seeing here.  Surprisingly for a galaxy so far away, 2 bight blue star-forming regions can be seen in the disk.

I have found several papers on this galaxy which also speculate that a recent merger is responsible for the resulting odd shape and blue star regions.

Comments