IC 51 (2013)

IC51 is kind of a confusing galaxy. It’s got elliptical shells but it’s also got dust and and a relatively large central disk, keeping it from fitting neatly into any category. It’s simply listed as “interacting galaxies” in SIMBAD but it’s progressed so far that it appears as a single galaxy to me.

Red: hst_06276_06_wfpc2_f814w_wf_sci
Green: hst_06276_06_wfpc2_f555w_wf_sci
Blue: hst_06276_06_wfpc2_f675w_wf_sci

Copyright information:
Hubble data is public domain, but I put a lot of work into combining it into beautiful color images. The minimal credit line should read: NASA / ESA / J. Schmidt

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.