NGC 578 is a spiral galaxy around 65 million light years away in Cetus. The galaxy features tightly wound arms and a number of active star forming regions.
An unusual feature in the image is the galaxy PGC 133775 which appears as though it is embedded within NGC 578 although this is an optical illusion and the galaxy is likely much further away than NGC 578. The NED data base does not have red shift data for PGC 133775 so we were not able to calculate distance. The image features quite a number of distant background galaxies.
Imaged in LRGB on our Planewave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.
Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson