This pair of spiral galaxies is located slightly over 200 million light years away in the constellation of Lacerta at a declination of +41 degrees. They do not appear to me to be interacting with each other.
At left, NGC 7223 is a lovely barred spiral, nearly face-on, with a chaotic arm structure. It spans 1 arc-minutes in our apparent view. This corresponds to a diameter of 70,000 light years. Encircling the bar is a pseudo-ring, from which two primary arms extend counterclockwise for half a revolution. Many other arm fragments, Ha regions and blue star clouds are seen throughout the disk.
Just above and right of NGC 7223 is a yellow edge-on spiral. The data says that this galaxy is the same distance away as NGC 7223. I question that for 2 reasons. First, no disturbance is seen in any galaxy at this location. Second, and more importantly, at this distance the edge-on spiral is only 40,000 light years in diameter. That small size is possible but is at the extreme lower end for a well-formed spiral such as this one.
On the right side of the image is the grand design spiral galaxy UGC 11927, about the same size as NGC 7223. . From our view perspective, the disk is inclined about 35 degrees from face-on. Unlike NGC 7223, the disk is very symmetric with 2 primary arms. I love how these 2 arms spin into a tight uniform inner region, such that this region appears to be a lens. The disk of this galaxy appears to have little star formation ongoing and is not nearly as colorful as that of NGC 7223.
I have discussed galaxy disk color with many of you. This is a great example of how 2 galaxies at the same distance, in the same image and processed the same way can look completely different in terms of the colors seen throughout the disk.
My friend Matthias (
@GalacticRAVE) was the first to post a debut image of this pair of objects last year, seen
here.
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