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This spectacular interacting
            pair of galaxies is the center of a greater number of fainter
            background objects. The primary object seen here is 10.2 magnitude
            NGC4490, classed as SBS7P, and quite peculiar. The companion
            to the interaction is 12.3 magnitude NGC4485 above, and is an
            Irregular Magellanic type. The interaction is noteworthy because
            of the string of pink HII regions on the north side of 4490,
            and the trail leading up to the companion. The completely blue
            color of these galaxies is a bit unusual indicating a burst of
            star formation on a gigantic scale.

            
The small faint galaxies
            also in the image are anonymous types, with little data on them,
            however they are mostly 17th magnitude and fainter.

            
The image on
            the left is a standard LRGB image with a combined six hour integration
            time. An additional 2 hours of hydrogen alpha data was combined
            to this image for the right image.

Instrument:  12.5" f/5 Home made Newtonian
Mount:  Astrophysics 1200 QMD
CCD Camera:  SBIG 10XME NABG with Enhanced Water Cooling
Guider: SBIG ST4  w/Lumicon Newt Easy Guider
Exposure:  Ha+LRGB = 120+240:40:40:40 (RGB Binned 2x2)
AstroDon RGB Combine Ratio:  1: 1.05: 1.11
Location:  Payson, Arizona, Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing FWHM = 10 arcsec (Maxim DL - 10min subframe), Transparency 9/10
Outside Temperature:  45 F
CCD Temperature:  -30 C
Image Processing Tools: 
Maxim DL:  Calibration, deblooming (Starizona Debloomer), aligning, stacking
Gralaks Sigma:  Stacking
PixInsight:  Curves, Deconvolution, noise reduction
Photoshop CS2:  Curves, Color Correction, Gradient removal (Grad Xterminator), Cleanup

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