NGC 3190

NGC3190, a spiral galaxy of type SA(s)a in the constellation Leo, was imaged during engineering work at the KPNO Mayall 4-meter telescope in January of 2001. The large size of the telescope and the smaller format imager used for test work combine to make the field of view only just the size of the galaxy itself. Multiple exposures on this faint galaxy took a total of 3000s in the blue (B) band, 2000s in green (V) and 1000s in red (R). NGC3190 in fact forms a small group (Hickson 44, Arp 316) with NGC3193 to the east, NGC3187 to the west, and NGC3185, significantly further away to the southwest. Interestingly, NGC3189 refers to the south-west (lower right) part of NGC3190. The strong dust lane down the middle apparently misled the catalog compilers into giving it two separate numbers. NGC3190 also contains an active galactic nucleus.