Can't really tell... arc, lens, artifact, etc.?
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by Jaymo1978
Hey folks! This is a weird one. First, I marked that it had the appearance of spiral arms, BUT, I can't really tell if I'm misled by another part of the image. This "other part" is the second thing I wanted to ask about. If you look at the center of this galaxy, it almost looks like there is a perfect "6" in the center. The galactic bulge is within the closed circular portion of the 6, and the top of the 6 comes out and borders the top edge of the galaxy.
In this respect, I don't know if this "6" is some sort of ring formation, or if it in fact is a spiral arm that is just drawn tightly enough to be hard to distinguish. OR, it could be some sort of gravitational lensing disturbing the image, but I would expect that to appear more at the periphery of the galaxy, rather than directly over the top, maybe I'm wrong to expect that.
Back to the spiral arms - if in fact this "6" is something other than an arm formation, then that could mean that the lower arm-like formation is actually tidal debris, since there doesn't appear to be a matching arm at the upper edge of the disk.
Thanks in advance for any insights!
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by ElisabethB moderator
Hi Jaymo1978 and welcome to the Zoo
First of : don't over think it ! Just answer the questions as well as you can and your classification is perfect ! 😄
I can understand your confusion ! I'd go for a disturbed spiral for this one and a very nice one at that ! 😄
happy hunting ! 😄
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