NGC3628 - HAMBURGER GALAXY

NGC 3628, often called the Hamburger Galaxy, is an edge-on unbarred spiral galaxy in the constellation Leo, located approximately 35 million light-years from Earth. It is the third and often overlooked member of the Leo Triplet, a famous group of interacting galaxies that also includes M65 and M66. While its companions are tilted enough to reveal their spiral structure, NGC 3628 presents itself almost perfectly edge-on to our line of sight, displaying a dramatic dark dust lane that bisects the galaxy's luminous disk and gives it the hamburger-like appearance that inspired its nickname. The galaxy spans roughly 100,000 light-years across, making it comparable in size to our own Milky Way. One of NGC 3628's most remarkable features is a faint tidal tail of stars and gas that extends approximately 300,000 light-years from the galaxy, stretching far beyond what is visible in typical photographs. This enormous stream of material was pulled from the galaxy by gravitational interactions with its neighbors M65 and M66, providing clear evidence that the Leo Triplet is a physically interacting system rather than a chance alignment. The tidal tail was first detected in radio observations of neutral hydrogen and has since been confirmed in deep optical images. NGC 3628 also harbors an active nucleus and shows evidence of a starburst in its central region, likely triggered by the same gravitational interactions that produced the tidal tail. X-ray observations have revealed a plume of hot gas extending perpendicular to the galaxy's disk, indicating a galactic superwind driven by the concentrated star formation activity. For amateur astronomers, NGC 3628 is an attractive edge-on galaxy that showcases the dramatic effect of dust lanes when a spiral galaxy is viewed from the side.

The galaxy spans approximately 100,000 light-years across with a spectacular tidal tail extending 300,000 light-years, located about 35 million light-years away in the Leo Triplet group.