Featured Deep Sky Objects
NGC 2207

Deep Sky Object Chart | Stars in Canis Major | M41
| M46/M47 | M93 | NGC 2217 | NGC 2362

NGC 2207 is a galaxy, far beyond the stars of our own milky way. Hardly the easiest of targets, NGC 2207 is magnitude 12.3, and spans an area 2.5 x 1.5 arc minutes across. The galaxy is type Sc, which means that it is a loosely organized spiral system not too different from our galaxy. Interestingly, NGC 2207 is an example of an interacting pair, bound by gravity into a celestial dance that has distorted its form into a elongated "heart" shape - the companion galaxy is barely discernable as a clump partially engulfed by the larger spiral.

Our own galaxy may have similarly consumed passers by in the remote past, as revaled by recent studies of the Milky Way. Perhaps someday NGC 2207 will return to its former delicate spiral form, the stars of the other galaxy incorporated into it - will astronomers there in the distant future be shocked to learn their galaxy is a cannibal? NGC 2207 is suitable for large telescopes only, and requires dark skies.


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