One of the most peculiar spirals in the sky, this object known as the "Tadpole Galaxy" has an angular size of 4x1 arcminute, not including the tail. Classed as a 14.4 magnitude SB spiral, its peculiar nature was almost certainly caused by a collision with another galaxy in past time. It is 420 million lightyears distant, Several blue knots can bee seen in the arms and to the lower left of the core. The tail itselef has several blue knots, visible here as condensations along its length. Just to the right of the base of the tail are two faint 20+ magnitude galaxies seen in the Hubble images.

The yellowish round galaxy to the lower left is MCG+9-26-54 and is a 15.3 magnitude type C galaxy. The new Hubble Space Telescope image can be seen here for comparison.

Instrument:  12.5" f/5 Home made Newtonian
Platform:  Astrophysics 1200 QMD
CCD Camera:  SBIG ST7E w/Enhanced Cooling
Exposure:  LRGB = 60:20:20:20 (RGB Binned 2x2)
RGB Combine Ratio:  1: .95: 1.8
Filters:  RGB Tricolor
Location:  Payson, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing FMHW = 3.5 arcsec, Transparency 6/10
Outside Temperature:  20 C
CCD Temperature:  -15 C
Processing:  Maxim DL, Photoshop, AIP4WIN, PW Pro.