The pair of galaxies at the bottom of the image are NGC 4567 (top) and NGC 4568 (bottom). The other galaxy is NGC 4564. The pair is known as the Siamese twins and also known as the butterfly galaxies it is about 60 million miles away and part of the Virgo galaxy cluster. They are named the Siamese Twins because they appear to be connected. Though the lack of major tidal distortion indicates this is more an alignment artifact than they are really colliding. The strong dust lane that separates them would indicate they are close to each other, however. How far they are apart really is as yet unknown.

(Edit: This was a very early image from 2007 when I wrote little about them. I need to research this image as I do more modern ones. For now, I'll just add that that the twins were discovered by William Herschel on March 15, 1784. I was surprised that neither are in either of the H400 programs. NGC 4564 was discovered by Herschel the same night as the twins. It didn't make either program either. Either seeing was poor this night or my technique back then was poor. The image needs to be taken again. Seligman says NGC The pair of galaxies at the bottom of the image are NGC 4567 (top) and NGC 4568 (bottom). The other galaxy is NGC 4564. The pair is known as the Siamese twins and also known as the butterfly galaxies it is about 60 million miles away and part of the Virgo galaxy cluster. They are named the Siamese Twins because they appear to be connected. Though the lack of major tidal distortion indicates this is more an alignment artifact than they are really colliding. The strong dust lane that separates them would indicate they are close to each other, however. How far they are apart really is as yet unknown.

(Edit: This was a very early image from 2007 when I wrote little about them. I need to research this image as I do more modern ones. For now, I'll just add that that the twins were discovered by William Herschel on March 15, 1784. I was surprised that neither are in either of the H400 programs. NGC 4564 was discovered by Herschel the same night as the twins. Seligman says NGC 4567 and NGC 4567 are SA(rs)bc galaxies/. He classifies NGC 4564 as E6???. It didn't make either program either. Seeing was poor this night (April 22, 2007) or my technique back then was poor. The image needs to be taken again.)

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=1x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME