The Hamburger Galaxy: NGC 3628 in Leo | Víctor Blanco Telescope

The Hamburger Galaxy: NGC 3628 in Leo | Víctor Blanco Telescope

NGC 3628, sometimes nicknamed the Hamburger Galaxy or Sarah's Galaxy, is an unbarred spiral galaxy about 35 million light-years away in the constellation Leo. Extending to the left of NGC 3628 for around 300,000 light-years is a ‘tidal tail’—an elongated region of stars that arises as a result of gravitational interaction with another galaxy. Embedded within this tidal tail is the ultra-compact dwarf galaxy known as NGC 3628-UCD1.

NGC 3628 was discovered by William Herschel in 1784. Along with M65 and M66, NGC 3628 forms the Leo Triplet, a small group of galaxies. Notice the broad and obscuring band of dust located along the outer edge of its spiral arms, effectively transecting the galaxy to the view from Earth.

This image was captured by the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Dark Energy Camera mounted on the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab.

Credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/DOE/NSF/AURA

Image Processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF’s NOIRLab), M. Zamani (NSF’s NOIRLab), & D. de Martin (NSF’s NOIRLab)

Release Date: Nov. 8, 2023

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