The Hypnotist

When I first started working on this project I was in awe of the tightly wrapped galaxy in the center of this frame, NGC5754.  It reminded me of the old cartoon eyes that form spirals when hypnotized… so I coined it the Hypnotist Galaxy.  Astronomers actually surmise this is very similar to the appearance of our own Milky Way.

We are looking deep into a very small corner of the universe.   Several wild looking galaxies are revealed.   The pair in the middle which I called the “Hypnotist” actually looks more like a long stem rose after the long exposure revealed a faint tidal tail of stars extending to the bottom of this frame.   These two galaxies are over 200 million light years (mly) away, locked in a cosmic dance and literally ripping themselves apart.   Due to the distance, that tidal tail is estimated to be over 200,000 light years long!

To the right, NGC5755, is one of the weirdest galaxies I’ve seen.  Nature doesn’t usually bend right angles like this and yet it is oddly angular in appearance.  I can only guess that this thing has a lot of depth, and we are viewing it end-on … which us why it looks so strange.  It’s twice as far away at over 450 mly.   To the right of that is a spiral, NGC5753, that is another doubly-far-away galaxy at over 830 mly distant.   Just in these few leaps we are almost a billion light years from home and the image keeps going.   In fact, there are multiple visible quasars here with a light travel time over over 10 billion years!

I love a backyard with a view.  Mind blowing, tbh.  Hope you enjoy.

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