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

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Stephan's Quintet, Michel Makhlouta
Powered byPixInsight

Stephan's Quintet

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Description

Stephan's Quintet is a visual grouping of five galaxies of which four form the first compact galaxy group ever discovered. The brightest member of the visual grouping (and the only non-member of the true group) is NGC 7320.

Four of the five galaxies in Stephan's Quintet form a physical association, a true galaxy group, Hickson Compact Group 92, and will likely merge with each other.

NGC 7320 is closer to Earth, located at 40 million light-years from our planet. The other members of the quintet reside 290 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus.

Aside from the quintet galaxies (NGC 7317, NGC 7318a and NGC7318b, NGC7319, NGC7320c) and the intruding NGC7320, there's a faint galaxy in this image in the lower right side of the image, called LEDA 141041.

This is not the best image out there, but I've come to terms with the limits of my skies at this focal length. I "binned" the image to 2x2 in post-processing. What the image lacked in resolution, the story of the galaxies in it compensated for it.

Clear skies and stay safe!

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Stephan's Quintet, Michel Makhlouta