NGC 1792 - A Starburst Spiral Galaxy

There are very few images of this wonderful galaxy to date by amateur astronomers, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I am.

NGC 1792 is in the southern constellation of Columba. It was discovered by the Scottish astronomer James Dunlop on October 4, 1826.

NGC 1792’s appearance is quite energetic looking, due to the rich neutral hydrogen nature of this galaxy new stars are forming quite rapidly. It’s both a spiral galaxy, and a starburst galaxy.

Stars within these starburst galaxies are forming at quite extraordinary rates. It can be more than 10 times faster in a starburst galaxy than in a galaxy like our own the Milky Way.

When galaxies have a large reservoir of gas, like NGC 1792, these short-lived starburst phases can be sparked by galactic events such as mergers and tidal interactions.  One might think that these starburst galaxies would easily consume all their gas in a large forming event, However, supernova explosions and intense stellar winds produced in these powerful starbursts can inject energy into the gas and disperse it, this halts the star formation before it can completely deplete the galaxy of all its fuel.

Taken from SWOS in El Sauce, Chile ,24” PlaneWave CDK (LRGBHA)