Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Pegasus (Peg)  ·  Contains:  NGC 7317  ·  NGC 7318  ·  NGC 7319  ·  NGC 7320  ·  NGC 7331  ·  NGC 7333  ·  NGC 7335  ·  NGC 7336  ·  NGC 7337  ·  NGC 7338  ·  NGC 7340  ·  Stephan's Quintet
Deer Lick Group & Stephan's Quintet, Kurt Zeppetello
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Deer Lick Group & Stephan's Quintet

Deer Lick Group & Stephan's Quintet, Kurt Zeppetello
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Deer Lick Group & Stephan's Quintet

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Description

The Deer Lick group, located on the lower left, consists of the large dusty spiral galaxy NGC 7331 approximately 40 million light-years away. It is thought to to be a twin of our own Milky Way galaxy. Also, the central bulge rotates in the opposite direction of the spiral arms. Several other smaller galaxies, just below the NGC 7331, are about ten times farther. Gary Imm describes the strange name coming from an amateur astronomer observing at the Deer Lick Gap in North Carolina.

Stephan's Quintet, located on the upper right, consists of four gravitationally interacting galaxies about 200 million light-years away. The fifth galaxy, NGC 7320, is only 40 million light years away, thus is not interacting with the other four galaxies. It is pretty easy to identify as it is blue and is only one not to be distorted.

I was hoping to get more detail, what a surprise - who isn't, but was happy with what I obtained. I had guiding issues on the first night of imaging when I got the Luminosity and Red and the exposures it looked fine but when imaged the Green and Blue on second night, it was apparent that the first night was not as good. It looked clear out side and it seemed focused but there may have been some mist. Processing went smooth and it was fun to work on galaxies again. These galaxies are relatively small so I cropped them quite a bit, a larger scope would be preferable for these objects.

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