NGC 3628 “Culver’s in the sky”

 NGC 3628 is classed as an unbarred spiral galaxy 35 million light years away in Leo. It’s often referred to as the hamburger galaxy. I have to say if I’m going to eat a burger from fast food place it will be Culver’s! And this one looks delicious, must be a bacon butter deluxe.

It’s also one of the galaxies in the Leo triplet and has a tidal tail that stretches 300,000 light years seen in a nice detail in this image. While classified as unbarred, there is some speculation that it is a barred galaxy due to the X shaped bulge in the central portion. Bar formation is often triggered by interaction with other galaxies, and 3628 is interacting with the other two galaxies in the triplet.

The galaxy features numerous dust lanes and several obvious regions of active star formation. There are many distant background galaxies throughout the image.

 Image Processing and Calibration: Mark Hanson

Data: Martin Pugh

 Enjoy,

 Mark

NGC 3628 in Leo

Taken from DGRO Rancho Hidalgo Animas, New Mexico
14.5" RCOS F8, Apogee U16M High Cooling
Luminance 420, Red 140, Green 140, Blue 140,
Calibrated,combined in CCD Stack all other processing done using PS5.


Explanation: Sharp telescopic views of magnificent edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 3628 show a puffy galactic disk divided by dark dust lanes. The tantalizing scene puts many astronomers in mind of its popular moniker, The Hamburger Galaxy. About 100,000 light-years across and 35 million light-years away in the constellation Leo, NGC 3628 shares its neighborhood in the local Universe with two other large spirals, a grouping otherwise known as the Leo Triplet. Gravitational interactions with its cosmic neighbors are likely responsible for the extended flare and warp of this spiral's disk, populated by the galaxy's young blue star clusters and tell tale pinkish star forming regions. Also a result of past close encounters, a faint tidal tail of material is just visible extending upward and left in this deep galaxy portrait.