NGC 1344: A Rare, Esoteric Elliptical

[Russ.Carpenter]

This text and image have been uploaded to Astrobin. https://www.astrobin.com/jgna7r/

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NGC 1344: A Rare, Esoteric Elliptical

Here is a galaxy that looks like your usual elliptical blob at first glance. But NGC 1344 is actually a very unusual kind of elliptical called a “shell galaxy”. If you look at this image carefully, you can see a series of subtle layers, especially on the right side. Astronomers believe that the layers were created by a collision with another galaxy, but the question is: why don’t many other galaxies show the same structure? It is an important unanswered puzzle.

When shell galaxies were studied by Halton Arp and Barry Madore, during their preparation of “A Catalog of Southern Peculiar Galaxies Associations”, they decided that they were so unusual that they couldn’t fit in any of the more common galaxy classifications. Therefore they created the category “Miscellaneous” (Category 22). NGC 1344 is included in Category 22 as well as Category 16 (Irregular or Disturbed Galaxies).

The image is new to Astrobin. It has been very rarely imaged by amateurs. It is part of my on-going study of peculiar galaxies in the Southern Hemisphere.

Tech Notes for ASA 500/3.6:
ASA Newtonian, 500 mm aperture, 1900mm focal length, F3.6
FLI Proline 16803, 9 mm pixel, 4096 X 4096
ASA DDM85 equatorial mount
Processing with PixInsight, StarTools, and Affinity Photo