Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Pegasus (Peg)  ·  Contains:  NGC 7317  ·  NGC 7318  ·  NGC 7319  ·  NGC 7320
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NGC 7317, NGC7318(A and B), NGC7319 and NGC7320 Stevens Quintet, niteman1946
NGC 7317, NGC7318(A and B), NGC7319 and NGC7320 Stevens Quintet
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NGC 7317, NGC7318(A and B), NGC7319 and NGC7320 Stevens Quintet

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 7317, NGC7318(A and B), NGC7319 and NGC7320 Stevens Quintet, niteman1946
NGC 7317, NGC7318(A and B), NGC7319 and NGC7320 Stevens Quintet
Powered byPixInsight

NGC 7317, NGC7318(A and B), NGC7319 and NGC7320 Stevens 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 group, visible in the constellation Pegasus, was discovered by Édouard Stephan in 1877 at the Marseille Observatory. 
The group is the most studied of all the compact galaxy groups. 
The brightest member of the visual grouping (and the only non-member of the true group) is NGC 7320, which has extensive H II regions where active star formation is occurring.
Four of the five galaxies in Stephan's Quintet form a physical association, a true galaxy group, and will likely merge with each other.
Stephan's Quintet was selected as one of the five cosmic objects observed by the James Webb Space Telescope as part of the release of its first official science images.
As NGC 7318B collides with gas in the group, a huge shock wave bigger than the Milky Way spreads throughout the medium between the galaxies, heating some of the gas to temperatures of millions of degrees.
NGC 7320 indicates a small redshift (790 km/s) while the other four exhibit large redshifts (near 6,600 km/s). Galactic redshift is proportional to distance, so NGC 7320 is only a foreground projection and is ~39 million light-years from Earth, versus the 210–340 million light-years of the other four.
NGC 7319 has a type 2 Seyfert nucleus. [Source:  Wikipedia].

Capture Information:
The image was captured with the iOptron CEM120 mount, the venerable Meade 12" LX200 SCT OTA, and my QHYCCD QHY294m Pro mono CMOS camera at F7.16 (2182 mm FL)

Astronomik's Lum, Red, Green and Blue broad band filters were used.

Image Information -- 2023
LUM :  90 subs (7.50hr) on Oct 5th, 7th and 12th.
RED :  20 subs (1.67hr) on Oct 5th.
GRN :  20 subs (1.67hr) on Oct 8th.
BLU :   27 subs (2.25hr) on Oct 7th and 12th.
All exposures were at 5 minutes (300s) each, 1600 gain, 56 offset, 1x1 bin and -10C.

Processing was done with PixInsight, following (for the most part) Kayronjm's tutorial of Feb. 24th from several years back.
Lum filter was used to develop the Luminance image. R, G and B were collected for the color mix.
North is to the right (pretty sure), and this is a somewhat large crop due to the small size of the target. 

Comments:
With the temperature change, I’m now able to create all subs at -10C.
This is the 2nd time I’ve run at this target.  The first was in November 2010, using the Canon XSi DSLR (mod) and Meade 12” LX200 fork mount telescope.

I did encounter some problems with autofocusing on two nights.  The SGPro controller software lost communication with the Starizona Micro Focuser, and quite a few subs had to be thrown out.  I suspect it may have to do with SGPro’s Sequence software getting corrupted after being used and save multiple times.  We’ll see.

ONE LAST THING:
The iOptron CEM120 mount RA excursions continue. But fortunately for this target most (if now all) stayed below the limiting threshold, and most subs were usable.

Comments

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NGC 7317, NGC7318(A and B), NGC7319 and NGC7320 Stevens Quintet, niteman1946