I took my “small target” quest to the extreme with this image.

The main target in this image is NGC 2622, which is a slightly distorted barred spiral galaxy (~14 magnitude). NGC 2622 is classified as a Seyfert I galaxy which means that it hosts a supermassive black hole at its core surrounded by an active accretion disk that is emitting massive amounts of UV and X-ray radiation. The long axis of the galaxy itself measures under 1 arcminute and the short axis is under .5 arcminutes. The distance estimates I could find put it at around 360-400 million light years from us.



Obviously, there is more going on in NGC2622's neighborhood. Upon inspection, there are two other bright galaxies and an extensive network of tidal tails. According to what I could find, they are both a similar distance as NGC 2622, so I can only suppose that these are an interacting trio of galaxies. In fact, to my eye, the long, extended tidal tail appears twisted like a sheet of taffy.

Two other NGC galaxies reside in this field. NGC 2620 is the most obvious, large spiral galaxy (the largest in the frame), and NGC 2621. These galaxies are both also in the same distance range as the target cluster. That makes for a decently close grouping.

I stretched the image quite intensely to pull up all the background galaxies. There are plenty. I dug through what I could find there poking out of the noise. Indeed, I found some photons that have been happily sailing for almost 12 billion years. That’s a mighty long trip. Revision B shows that lonely speck annotated.

About the image and processing…. I pushed this data more than I would have preferred due to the atmospheric conditions I was given. But, it seemed reasonable enough to finish off at this point.

Revision A - Original image

Revision B - Original image with QSO annotation

Revision C - Central area crop and rotated so celestial north is up