A Bridge Between Galaxies
This image shows NGC 6328, a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Ara, lying around 120 million light-years away. Spanning roughly 95,000 light-years across, it displays prominent spiral arms emerging from a bright bar-shaped core, with dust lanes and regions of star formation adding texture to its disk. If you look carefully inside the galaxy towards the top is the galaxy PGC 4077613 just peaking through from much further away.
Above NGC 6328 lies its smaller companion, PGC 60197, connected by a faint tidal stream—a bridge of stars and gas created by gravitational interactions. Such encounters distort galaxy shapes and can trigger bursts of new star formation. The deep field also reveals numerous distant galaxies scattered across the background.
NGC 6328 measures about 2.5 × 1.9 arcminutes in the sky, a modest size that belies its enormous true scale. Classified as a barred spiral galaxy (SB(s)ab), it’s a fascinating example of cosmic dynamics at play in galaxy evolution.
Imaged in LRGB on my Planewave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.
Image acquisition and processing: Mike Selby