The Tadpole Galaxy, Arp 188, is a disrupted galaxy resembling a giant tadpole, with an elliptical head and a long, straight tail of stars about 280,000 light years long, located 420 million light years away from Earth. The size of the galaxy has been attributed to a merger with a smaller galaxy that is believed to have occurred about 100 million years ago. The galaxy is filled with bright blue star clusters.
It is hypothesized that a more compact intruder galaxy crossed in front of the Tadpole Galaxy—from left to right from the perspective of Earth—and was slung around behind the Tadpole by their mutual gravitational attraction. During this close encounter, tidal forces drew out the spiral galaxy's stars, gas, and dust, forming the conspicuous tail. The intruder galaxy itself, estimated to lie about 300 thousand light-years behind the Tadpole, can be seen through foreground spiral arms at the upper left. Following its terrestrial namesake, the Tadpole Galaxy will likely lose its tail as it grows older, the tail's star clusters forming smaller companion satellite galaxies. Wikipedia
- Right Ascension: 16h 06m 30s, Declination: +55d 22m 20s
- Constellation: Draco
- Distance: 420 Mly
- Apparent magnitude: 14.6
- Apparent size: 3.6 x 0.8 arc-min
- Exposure months: May thru July 2019.
- Exposure: Lum: 15x600s=2.5 hrs, Red: 14x600s=2.33 hrs, Green: 10x600s=1.66 hrs, blue: 12x600=2 hrs. (8.5 hrs total)
- Instrument: RCOS 20 inch at f8.1 (fl=4116mm), SBIG ST8-XME (1 pixel=0.4509
- Processing: PixInsight