by Bob Franke
Taken on 5/16/2010 to 6/6/2010 in Chino Valley, AZ
RCOS 12.5" Ritchey-Chrétien w/ an SBIG STL-11000 camera using Astrodon filters
Exposure Details:
Lum 330 min (22 x 15 min)
RGB 270 min ( 6 x 15 min each)
North is to top.
NGC 5395 and 5394 , also known as Arp 84, are two interacting galaxies in the constellation Canes Venatici. The larger, NGC 5395, is at a distance 165 million light-years and NGC 5394 is 162 million light-years away. NGC 5394 is thought to have cart wheeled through NGC 5395, instead of a grazing encounter.
The larger elliptical galaxy, to the upper left of NGC 5394, is IC 4356. At a distance of about 675 million light-years, IC 4356 is a member of the Virgo I galaxy group.
Arp 84 is also known as the Heron Galaxy. It takes little imagination to see a blue heron's body, complete with neck, head and a beak reaching out to a nearby fish. Also seen in the image, are hundreds of background galaxies... as faint as magnitude 23.2.