The brightest galaxy in this group NGC 7331 is a spiral galaxy whose central bulge is thought to rotate in the opposite direction of the rest of the galaxy.   Also prominent in this image are NGC 7335, NGC 7336, NGC 7337 and NGC 7340.    Multiple supernova events have been observed in NGC 7331.

The subs for this image were captured in mid September 2022.    

This image is the product of an excellent collaboration with Bray Falls.   In early 2020 we started working together.  Bray is an outstanding Pixinsight expert who helped me come up to speed on a basic working knowledge of Pixinsight.  It became quickly clear that my time was best spent on image capture and optimizing the equipment and software.   Bray would work on post processing using Pixinsight, Photoshop, BXT and other software tools.   I'd add a bit of LightRoom processing from time to time.   I'm really pleased with the results from this collaboration which has only gotten better and better.   


Additional notes:   In mid 2022 at the suggestion of Bob Denny (ACP) image exposure time changed to 300 second exposures using Bin 2.   For several years  600 second exposures unbinned  was standard (for me - for all IMX455 sensor cameras).   This change improved the image capture process significantly.  The C3-61000 uses the Sony IMX455 60mp sensor.   Unbinned,  129 megabyte files cause no end of problems with plate solving.   Moving to 300s at Bin2 improved sensitivity and produced smaller 30 megabyte files which are more easily digested by plate solve software like Visual Pinpoint.    The image capture process is now fully automated in ACP, Visual Pinpoint and ACP Scheduler.    ACP is now configured to plate solve and recenter (and set position angle to 0 degrees)  after every image capture.   The drift on the L-600 mount is consistently measured at less than 2 arc-seconds over this 300s image capture.   No dithering has been used - but worth a look.   Refocusing is done every hour.   In November 2022 a separate guider scope was added reducing the drift even further.   A day or two of mount tuning by the techs at PlaneWave reduced slew settle time to a few seconds and optimized the tracking feedback loop.