This wonderful pair of galaxies (which is actually a trio) is located almost 100 million light years away in the constellation of Pegasus at a declination of +19 degrees. Both galaxies span about 4 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of 90,000 light years.
The central galaxy, NGC 7241, is fascinating because of the bright blue star clusters which appear in front of the core. Many sources talk about these being star clusters of the galaxy, as one would normally expect, although the positioning of the clusters is unusual. However, a recent 2015 study used kinematic data to confirm that these blue clusters do not belong to NGC 7241, at least not yet. These clusters belong to a faint dwarf companion to NGC 7241. This companion galaxy is in the process of merging with the larger galaxy and appears directly along our line of sight to the core of NGC 7241.
A faint star stream is seen descending down from NGC 7241 and slightly to the left. This stream is barely visible at the bottom of the mouseover image. The stream was studied in a 2021 paper and is believed to be from the companion.
The right galaxy, UGC 11964, is a flat galaxy that doesn't appear to be interacting with NGC 7241 despite the fact that they are similar distances away.
At the top of the image is a strange object – a faint halo surrounding a dim bright core. At first I wrote here that I thought it may be a PN, but it actually is an amazing ring galaxy, as point out by
@Adam Block and
@DanaPatchick below in the comments. See
Adam's excellent image of this object for a much better view.
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