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NGC 6052
230 million light years from Earth in the constellation of Hercules, lies NGC 6052, a galaxy that is still in the process of merging with another.
At this point of merger it's impossible to really see any pattern to how it will ultimately play out, the stars from each galaxy are thrown inwards and outwards from their original paths and bodies of dust and gas interact causing huge star formation as it does.
NGC 2442 - The Cobra Galaxy
This interesting galaxy is actually categorized as two, NGC 2442 and 3, although it's actually one galaxy. The confusion came from it being assumed the top and bottom were somehow separated, but closer observation changed that, but the catalogue references remained.
The galaxy is around 50 Million light years from Earth in the constellation of Volans, making this image about 75,000 light years across, a little smaller than our galaxy, but it's S type shape betrays some recently interactions with other galaxies.
Although on Stellarium you can just about see it (I've added a small white arrow to where it is located), it's actually a Mag 11.2 object, far beyond human eye's and needing a fairly decent telescope to locate. The constellation of Volans is only visible from the Southern Hemisphere, so those in the North will have to make to with Hubble's beautiful image instead.
Happy Flocculent Galaxy Day
NGC 3521
M63
NGC 2775
NGC 2841
NGC 7753
There's no such day of course, but there should be. Flocculant galaxies have this beautiful wool like structure, areas of star formation broken by dust lanes.
Simply magical to see hanging in the night sky.
NGC 3532 - The Pincushion Cluster
Many clusters appear to be made primarily of blue giant stars, but when you get to see a mixtures of blue and red giants set against the backdrop of faint reflectivity and red glow of emissions, it turns into one of the most beautiful clusters in the night sky.
The cluster is 1,321 light years from Earth in the constellation of Carina, and is also known by a few other names (Wishing Well, Football and Black Arrow). There are 150 stars within the cluster, and 7 red giant stars as well as some unseen white dwarfs.
Red giants are the end stages of life of some of the stars within the cluster, the stage doesn't last long compared to the main sequence, which explains there rarity.
Another interesting fact is, on December 5th, 2017 the following image of the Pincushion Nebula was taken.
It was taken using the New Horizons spacecraft, and represented for a brief time the most distant image taken from Earth since the Pale Blue Dot (Voyager 1). New Horizons of course broke this record by taking more images later on.
NGC 7015
It can be tempting to think we have most of our visible universe licked, and yet, even NGC catalogued objects such as NGC 7015, have very little observational imagery, here one taken by a ground based telescope.
Yet, it represents a spiral galaxy larger than our own Milky Way, around 115,000 light years side to side, spiral arms full of star birth and nebula's and a barred central region, in fact, it's almost as if we're looking back at ourselves from the 210 million light years between us.
Before this beautiful image, that at least shows structure, little could be determined from the images that had been made.
The truth is, there's so much we still don't know about even the more notable objects in our skies, and with limited JWST time, and even Hubble time, unless somebody happens to just be doing some research on these objects, they will remain a blur for a fairly long time ahead.
Yet, let us not forget what those small blurry blobs are, billions of stars, uncountable planets, and every possibility of civilizations both past (200 million years ago as we look) and present (yet to be seen for millions of years ahead), all that will never even detect each others existence, all in that blurry image of a far flung galaxy.
NGC 5005
This spiral galaxy is around 65 Million light years from Earth in the constellation of Canes Venatici.
The central area is categorized as a LINER nucleus (Low Ionization Nuclear Emissions), which shows up as a bright core, and is most likely the result of a large supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy.
The galaxy has areas of star formation (showing up as blue) within the arms, along with dark dust lanes.
The galaxy has a loose gravitational interaction with NGC 5033.
The actual distance of both these galaxies is disputed, with quite a high level of uncertainty.
NGC 4100
65.1 Million light years from Earth in the constellation of Ursa Major, and a member of the NGC 3992 group of galaxies part of the Ursa Major cluster which is further part of the Virgo supercluster of galaxies.
The spiral galaxy has speckles of star forming regions that look like gems in rock, these follow the dust lanes which radiate out from the centre.
NGC 1232 - Barred Spiral Galaxy
60 Million light years from Earth in the constellation of Eridanus, NGC 1232 is a perfect example of a grand design spiral galaxy.
The galaxy is 200,000 light years across making it a large spiral galaxy, with a number of dwarf galaxies and a huge number of star forming regions seen as blue/pink blobs.
In 2013 NASA's Chandra X-Ray observatory spotted a large amount of hot gas emanating from a group of hot stars, thought to be a collision with a dwarf galaxy in the past.
