A barred spiral wrapped in a faint outer ring, drifting alone among the distant galaxies of Fornax—and far more complex than it first appears
NGC 1350 is a large ringed barred spiral galaxy classified as (R′)SB(r)ab, lying about 27 million light-years away in the constellation Fornax. Its most prominent structure is the bright inner resonance ring fed by a strong bar, where dust lanes curl inward in sharply defined arcs as gas loses angular momentum and flows toward the nucleus. Inside this ring sits a smooth nuclear lens, a tightly bound zone of older stars aligned with the bar, giving the core a layered, multi-component architecture.
Beyond the bright central regions lies a broad and extremely diffuse outer pseudoring, completing the galaxy’s double-ring morphology. The faint lopsidedness in the outer halo hints at long-term dynamical shaping—possibly minor tidal influence or asymmetric star formation across several rotations. Small knots of Hα emission mark pockets of ongoing star formation along the inner spiral, while the outer disk remains smooth and dominated by older stellar populations, creating a clear gradient from warm central tones to cooler outer layers.
The field around NGC 1350 is richly populated with background galaxies: tiny blue spirals, faint ellipticals, and several edge-on systems at vastly greater distances. Their presence underscores the enormous scale of this 130,000-light-year-wide galaxy and adds depth to the scene, reinforcing the sense that NGC 1350 is not only striking in appearance but intricately structured in ways that reveal the slow secular evolution of barred spirals.
Imaged in LRGB and H alpha on my Planewave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.
Image acquisition and processing: Mike Selby