NGC 3718 is warped spiral galaxy lying 52 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. It is warped by gravitational interaction with the galaxy NGC 3729 lying 150,000 light-yearsto the upper right of NGC 3718. The interaction of the galaxies has drawn NGC 3718’s spiral arms into long tidal tails clumped with blue clusters of newborn blue supergiant stars. Similar gravitational warping can be seen in the dark dust lane crossing in front of the galaxies yellow nucleus. The galaxy cluster Hickson 56, containing 5 gravitationally interacting galaxies, can be seen to the lower left of the bottom tidal tail. Hickson 56 lies at a distance of 400 million light-years.

Exposures: L:R:G:B =210:55:55:55 minutes = 6 hours, 15 minutes total exposure at f/7.5.