NGC 3521

Although it doesn’t have the same name recognition as Andromeda, the Whirlpool Galaxy or the Sombrero Galaxy, NGC 3521 (pictured below) is easily one of most stunning galaxies in the night sky.

Found about 40 million light-years from Earth toward the constellation of Leo, NGC 3521 has a somewhat obvious nickname: the Bubble Galaxy. When viewed from afar, it appears to be completely encased in a large, but faint, bubble. What looks like a second bubble also surrounds its nucleus. Astronomers believe the shell is an artifact of galaxy mergers.. namely when NGC 3521 and several smaller galaxies collided. In the immediate aftermath, a bunch of gas, dust and rogue stars were strewn all throughout space—eventually coalescing back into a familiar form (features such as halos, stellar streams and tidal tails are common in events like this).

The merger also led to the formation of many star clusters, which are pink-tinged. Those with a blue-white hue are high-mass, bright and incredibly hot. They will only live for a few hundred million years before they explode as supernovae—reseeding space with raw materials.

The first image is with No Ha and the image below that has some HA added. I am working on a deep HA image of this area. I’m positive the HA extends out further.

Data from El Sauce, Chile 17” Planewave CDK

LRGBHA - 500,300,300,300,180 Min each