Star Vistas

Galaxies are “Island Universes” comprising millions to billions of stars in a structure like our own Milky Way.  Although there are many different categories of galaxy, in general they are of the spiral type like M31 the Great Andromeda galaxy, or of the elliptical type like NGC2300 in Cepheus.  There are also some strangely shaped galaxies, usually caused by gravitational interaction with another close-by galaxy, and these strange-shaped galaxies are often designated as Arp galaxies after Halton Arp who first listed them.  NGC2276 in Star Vistas is a strangely shaped galaxy, probably caused by an encounter with the nearby NGC2300.  NGC2276 is also known as Arp 25.