NGC3718 is a warped galaxy in the Ursa Major (big dipper) constellation. It is located approximately 50 million light-years from Earth and has an apparent size of around 3 by 5 arcminutes.
A cropped version of this image is given below to help see the galaxy structure.
The small galaxy to the left of NGC3718 is NGC3729, a barred spiral galaxy. They are located at an apparent distance of 11 arcminutes from each other as viewed from Earth and are close enough is space that they might have interacted with each other in the past. While difficult to see in this small image, NGC3729 has a ring that sits at the end of the central bar.
Sitting above NGC3718 in this image is a small cluster of galaxies. This cluster is known as Hickson Group 56 or Arp 322. The group contains around five galaxies, located at over 400 million light-years away.
In the late 1980s I studied astrophysics at the University of British Columbia, completing a Master's degree in 1986 (officially a M.A.Sc. in Engineering Physics). I was doing radio astronomy but took several general astronomy courses. One course was in astronomical instrumentation, which included the new-fangled CCD sensors. I believe the professor for that course was Professor Hickson, of galaxy cluster fame. I'm not sure if he was the professor (it was 35 years ago...), but I certainly crossed paths with him at that time.
This image of NGC3718, NGC3729 and Hickson Group 56 was captured on April 30, 2022 at Lac Teeples. It is made up of approximately one hour of observations (one minute subframes stacked).
It was observed with the RASA11 telescope and the 6200 camera.
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