Sliced Onion Galaxy (NGC 3344) in Leo Minor

NGC 3344 is the largest and bright­est galaxy in the Little Lion at a dis­tance of 20 mil­lion light-years. It is a stun­ning open sys­tem seen only 23° from face-on, mem­ber of the Leo Spur of galax­ies. NGC 3344 is an SAB­bc-type galaxy, clas­si­fied between barred (SB) and unbarred (SA) with a very bright nuc­le­us (bc). The galaxy’s disk is scat­terd by a remark­able num­ber of HII regions.

In Octo­ber 2012, a super­nova was dis­covered in the galaxy’s disk, nearly south of the cen­ter, which is known as SN 2012fh.

An image taken by Capella Obser­vat­ory (www.capella-observatory.com) before the appear­ance of SN 2012fh can be found here.

Details

Find­er Chart Sliced Onion Galaxy (NGC 3344)

Image cre­ated by Skychart