NGC 2442, Meathook Galaxy, CDK24

NGC 2442, Meathook Galaxy can be found in the southern constellation of the flying fish, (Piscis) Volans. Located about 50 million light-years away, the galaxy’s two spiral arms extending from a pronounced central bar give it a hook-shaped appearance in this deep colorful image, with spiky foreground stars scattered across the telescopic field of view. The image also reveals the distant galaxy’s obscuring dust lanes, young blue star clusters and reddish star forming regions surrounding a core of yellowish light from an older population of stars. But the star forming regions seem more concentrated along the drawn-out (upper right) spiral arm. The distorted structure is likely the result of an ancient close encounter with a smaller galaxy off the image to the upper left. The two interacting galaxies are separated by about 150,000 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 2442. This image is a true color  composite of  luminance from the 24″ Planewave CDK24 and R,G,B, Ha from the 17 ” Planewave CDK17.