NGC 454 (another very rarely imaged galaxy) is a pair of interacting galaxies located at a distance of 170 million light years from Earth in the constellation Phoenix. NGC 454 was a real challenge to image as at a size of 1.5’ it is just on the edge of what the CDK 1000 can resolve in any detail and seeing was rather mediocre.
The pair consists of the elliptical galaxy NGC 454 E inhabited by old stars, which has a diameter of 50 thousand light-years, and the larger gas rich irregular galaxy NGC 454 W. The size of the latter has been estimated at 85 thousand light-years.
Both galaxies are in the early stages of tidal interaction and are showing strong distortions. It is thought that NGC 454 W may have once been a disk galaxy but now we only see a number of star clusters consisting of young blue stars.
In several hundred million years the two galaxies will complete their merger.
Considering this image depicts the galaxies as they were 170 million years ago, it is reasonable to assume that they would look very different today and may have already merged.
Imaged in LRGB on my Planewave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.
Image Processing and Acquisition: Mike Selby