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This image was created by median combining 7 x 90 second unfiltered images taken with a Takahashi Epsilon 250 with SBIG ST-8XE CCD. The image has been cut down to be 35 x 35 arc minutes in size.
NGC 4631 is a huge edge-on spiral galaxy, which is apparently distorted by its small elliptical companion, NGC 4627. This pair has been included in Arp's Catalog of Peculiar Galaxies as Arp 281. Rich field telescopes show it in one field with its large, heavily distorted companion, NGC 4656; this galaxy seems to have interacted massively with NGC 4631 and there is a bridge of hydrogen gas connecting both galaxies.
The bright knot at the end of NGC 4656 has been given the identifier NGC 4657. Beyond the knot, this galaxy curves due to gravitational distortion.
Return to Short Projects and Targets of Opportunity
In collaboration with the Remote Astronomical Society Observatory
Martin Nicholson - Daventry, United Kingdom.
This page was last updated on January 19th 2008.