Stephan's Quintet NGC7317, 18, 19 & 20 — Only one will survive the battle (Dave Rust)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Pegasus (Peg) · Contains: NGC 7317 · NGC 7318 · NGC 7319 · NGC 7320 · Stephan's Quintet

Powered byPixInsight

Stephan's Quintet NGC7317, 18, 19 & 20 — Only one will survive the battle

Acquisition type: Electronically-Assisted Astronomy (EAA, e.g. based on a live video feed)

Powered byPixInsight

Stephan's Quintet NGC7317, 18, 19 & 20 — Only one will survive the battle

Acquisition type: Electronically-Assisted Astronomy (EAA, e.g. based on a live video feed)

Only one gets out of this alive.

Well, two, actually.

This is Stephan's Quintet (NGC7318 and others).

That would be Édouard Stephan, of the Stephan clan in Sainte Pezenne, France. He found this cluster of galaxies in 1877.

Éd (we were close) needed a reflector 31 inches across to see this grouping. Thanks to better optics found these days, and extended exposures on digital sensors, we can see such distant targets with a scope a fraction of that size

Most of the individual stars in this image are in our own Milky Way galaxy. We have to look past them to see other galaxies. Some of the other dots and objects are more distant galaxies than those in Quintet.

Visible are four galaxies in the process of merging. One, in the upper right, is only a nucleus, having lost its spirals to the others. We can see other spirals in the midst of being pulled away in the lower left galaxy. Meanwhile, the two center galaxies are locked together in dramatic fashion, their destiny assured.

The fifth galaxy making up the "Quintet" is actually not involved in the battle, as it's much closer to us than the others. That's why the galaxy in the lower right looks round and healthy, with its blue spirals intact.

Stephan's Quintet is as much as 300 million light years away. That means we're seeing what these guys looked like that long ago. It'd be something to see how they really appear now, as the merging would have advanced a lot over that time.

Imagine being on a planet within a solar system on one of those galaxies. What a spectacle we'd see in the night sky! An image that would no doubt fit my song of the night, 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘺 𝘞𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳, by 𝘋𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘥 𝘏𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘍𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴.

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	8971983
PixInsight job	CX8MNPEYF9ZTGVX6QJ84STEN1SPIQI8H
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	22h36m05s.480
RA (top/left)	22h35m28s.640
RA (top/right)	22h35m23s.771
RA (bottom/right)	22h36m42s.446
RA (bottom/left)	22h36m47s.660

Dec (center)	+33°58′27″.26
Dec (top/left)	+34°10′30″.15
Dec (top/right)	+33°47′02″.67
Dec (bottom/right)	+33°46′25″.18
Dec (bottom/left)	+34°09′50″.96

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

Stephan's Quintet NGC7317, 18, 19 & 20 — Only one will survive the battle

Stephan's Quintet NGC7317, 18, 19 & 20 — Only one will survive the battle

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

		...
You have no new notifications.

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

Stephan's Quintet NGC7317, 18, 19 & 20 — Only one will survive the battle

Stephan's Quintet NGC7317, 18, 19 & 20 — Only one will survive the battle

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

Notifications

AstroBin is in READ ONLY mode

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Are you really sure?

Warning!

Warning!

Are you sure?

Report abuse

Slideshow settings

IOTD/TP stats (last [x] days)

Distribution of astrophotographers

Distribution of subject types

Distribution of data sources

Sorry

Sorry

Share

Upload new revision

Upload uncompressed source (XISF/FITS/PSD/TIFF)

Delete image and all its revisions?

Delete original image?

Delete all other versions?

Delete all revisions?

IOTD/TP stats

The following people like this image

The following people bookmarked this image

Warning

Flag malfunctioning thumbnails

Contains

Remove yourself as a collaborator

Plate-solving information