NGC 1374 & NGC 1375 (2014)

This pair of galaxies fits almost perfectly in one frame from Hubble’s ACS. What caught my attention is the one on the lower right, NGC 1375. The X shaped nuclei found in some galaxies interests me. So far, I’ve only seen them in edgewise galaxies. The effect viewed from face on may be subtle enough that it is very difficult to notice or they could be bar structures I’ve failed to make the connection to so far. They are also called boxy or peanut-shaped but when imaged with Hubble the X becomes obvious. See this paper for information from actual scientists rather than my own novice observations. I did some extra processing to make the strange nucleus of NGC 1375 more apparent.

These galaxies were imaged for Proposal 10911.

Red: HST_10911_01_ACS_WFC_F814W_sci
Green: Pseudo
Blue: HST_10911_01_ACS_WFC_F475W_sci

North is NOT up. It is 39.1° counter-clockwise from up.

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.