Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Pegasus (Peg)  ·  Contains:  NGC 7711
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NGC 7711, Gary Imm
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NGC 7711

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NGC 7711, Gary Imm
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NGC 7711

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Description

This object is an asymmetric spiral galaxy located 180 million light years away in the constellation of Pegasus at a declination of +15 degrees. The galaxy spans 5 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of 250,000 light years! I did not believe that a spiral galaxy could be this large!

However, I have now learned that this is not just one galaxy. As described in the 2011 paper "Tidal streams around galaxies" by Miskolczi, Bomans, and Dettmar, the remains of a faint dwarf companion lie to the right and slightly below the main galaxy. The tidal star stream from the interaction with this companion has been gravitationally wound around the main galaxy, which makes the overall size wide and asymmetric. It is interesting to me that the left side of the star stream almost perfectly resembles a galaxy disk, while on the right side the star stream is so faint that it is barely seen.

I believe that this is the first image of this object on Astrobin.

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NGC 7711, Gary Imm

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Edge-on Galaxies