“Beautiful Barred Bars of NGC 1672”

This spectacular amateur image of NGC 1672 is located between 52 and 60 million light years away in Dorado. It is a barred spiral galaxy seen almost face on and shows several regions of intense star formation.

The greatest concentration of star formation is found in the starburst regions near the ends of the galaxy s galactic bar.

NGC 1672 is a prototypical barred spiral galaxy and differs from normal spiral galaxies in that the spiral arms do not twist all the way into the center. Instead, they are attached to the two ends of a straight bar of stars enclosing the nucleus. Several Ionized hydrogen regions are also visible.

 Imaged in LRGB and H Alpha on our CDK 1000 and CDK 700 at Observatorio El Sauce, Obstech, Chile

Image Processing: Mark Hanson, Mike Selby

 Enjoy,

 Mike & Mark