Credit score rating: Sergey Trudolyubov
You’ll uncover this grouping of galaxies 2° north-northwest of the 2nd-magnitude star Algieba (Gamma [γ] Leonis). It carries a couple of widespread names. One is the Gamma Leonis Group resulting from its nearness to Algieba. The alternative is Hickson 44, the brightest group in Canadian astronomer Paul Hickson’s catalog of 100 compact galaxy groups. Hickson 44 lies roughly 100 million light-years away.
Spiral NGC 3190, an important galaxy in Hickson 44, appears better than twice as long as it is giant (4.1′ by 1.6′) and glows at magnitude 11.2. Its central space is vibrant and prolonged. By means of a 12-inch telescope at 250x, you’ll see a mud lane south of the nucleus. The lane is least apparent near the nucleus. It broadens in every directions as you look away from the center. With a diameter of 75,000 light-years, NGC 3190 is barely smaller than the Milky Method.
The brightest galaxy in Hickson 44 is the elliptical NGC 3193, which glows at magnitude 10.8 and has a diameter of two′. An 8-inch telescope will reveal a big, evenly illuminated core surrounded by a thin halo.
The last word two objects on this quartet are the magnitude 12.0 barred spiral NGC 3185 (11′ to the southwest of NGC 3190) and the magnitude 12.9 spiral NGC 3187 (5′ to the northwest).
Galactic astronomers theorize that compact galaxy groups like Hickson 44 lastly merge proper right into a single object, almost definitely an unlimited elliptical galaxy. Laptop computer simulations current that this could happen in a couple of billion years.