NGC5364

The image below shows a variety of galaxies located in Virgo, the largest three (NGC 5364, NGC 5363 and NGC 5360) are about 50 million light years distant. Fainter galaxies can also be seen in the background which lie at much greater distances, eg the Lenticular galaxy NGC 5373 is estimated to be in excess of 500 million light years distant.  

At the centre of the image is the grand design spiral galaxy NGC 5364. The two spiral arms are seen and contain a large number of bright blue stars. Closer inspection reveals that the arms are asymmetrical and it speculated that this distortion may be due to the gravitational interaction with the companion galaxy NGC 5363, shown near the top centre. This latter galaxy shows a dust lane perhaps created by a past merger. The view of the centre is distorted by the presence of a bright foreground star, close to the core, which is actually within the Milky Way. The smallest of the triplet is the Lenticular galaxy NGC 5360 which does not show any tidal tales.

This LRGB image was acquired by my Esprit 150 and represents about 17 hours integration time.