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Merger in progress

Vikas Chander, taken from Río Hurtado, Chile

The galaxy NGC 1532, roughly 60 million light-years away in Eridanus, is a barred spiral that is distinctly warped due to the gravitational influence of its smaller companion, dwarf galaxy NGC 1531. Eventually, the dwarf galaxy will be subsumed by the larger galaxy. The imager captured this shot over 18.2 hours with a 24-inch scope and HαLRGB filters; roughly ⅓ of that exposure was in Hα.