NGC 7331 is an unbarred spiral galaxy in Pegasus and is somewhat similar in appearance to our own Milky way.   In this galaxies the central bulge is rotating in the to the opposite direction compared to the rest of the disk.  The core of the galaxy also appears to be slightly off-center, with one side of the disk appearing to extend further away from the core than the other.

NGC 7331 is located ~ 40 million years away, and its visual group includes a number of more distant galaxies including the unbarred spirals NGC 7335 and 7336, the spiral NGC 7337 and the elliptical NGC 7340. They are backdropping 7331 at distances of 332, 365, 348 and 294 million years, respectively.  The effect reminds me of ducklings struggling to keep up to their Mum .

I was motivated to try imaging this galaxy with the encouragement of my compatriots of my observing group (Kevin G, Ryan and Dave) by trying my C8 Edge without any reducer.  I spend about an hour at home to gut the 0.7 reducer from the optical train and adjust the back focus correctly, and the MoonLite CHL focuser helped me out with that chore.  In this case I simply went with 133 mm of backfocus, which corresponds to the full fl of the scope (native focal length of 2032 mm).    I was close, as my onboard Raspberry Pi solved the fl as 2030 mm.  

This image was taken at our farm, about 50 km south of my city.   I set up in the lee of a wall of bales (we had a small breeze of 20 km/h NNW) in the middle of our field.  Bortle conditions here are about 4, the milky way is clearly visible. 

I used 180 second exposures in this case, with my 2600 mc pro OSC camera, organized my tracking and cooling, exposures etc with on onboard Raspberry Pi (ASIair).

As usual this was a fun session in the good company of our little band of astro enthusiasts, thanks to Kevin G, Ryan and David for their help (focusing at 2000 mm!!) and companionship.

Thanks for looking! 

Ian