NGC 7331 Deer Lick Group of Galaxies and Stephan’s Quintet
140mm f/7 Refractor, SBIG ST10XME LRGB filters Total exposure 4.5 Hours
10/25/2008 7:45 PM Latitude: 43° 31′ 21″ North Longitude: 122˚ 52’ 35” West 4658 ft. Snow Peak 25 miles S/E of Cottage Grove. OR. Seeing: E Transparency: 7 Bortle: 2 SQM: 2190 Telescopes / Optics: TEC 140 f/7 980mm Mount : AP1200 Camera: SBIG ST10XME; 185minutes (3 hours 5 min); LRGB (L=125,RGB=60) .; FOV 106’ x 72’ Filters: Astrodon LRGB series E. Information: Used CCDSoft, CCDStack, AIP, Photoshop. Also visible (upper left) is Stephens Quintet and interacting galaxies.
NGC 7331 (Deer Lick Group of Galaxies ) & NGC 7320 Stephens Quintet
The upper left is Stephens Quintet and the lower right is the Deer Lick group in the constellation of Pegasus. NGC 7331 the largest Galaxy in the Deer Lock group is 9° Northwest of ß Pegasi. The lower right edge of NGC7331 is pointed North and the companion galaxies are to the East. Galaxy NGC 7331 resembles what our own Milky Way galaxy would look like some 50 million light years away. This galaxy has an overall brightness of magnitude 10.3 . This group is a nice visual treat in medium to large amateur scope (10″ and up) NGC 7331 is 10.6′ x 3.8′ (the moon is 28′)
Stephens Quintet (upper left) is a small group of interacting galaxies 300 million light years away. You can see the lower two galaxies are interacting and a long arm extents from the one to the right. This detail is readily evident in the full resolution image. NGC7318A & NGC 7318B (magnitude 14) are colliding and nearby NGC 7319 (magnitude 14.4) may also be involved since it has an arm that stretches out. NGC 7320 (Mag. 13.3) is the top oblong one and NGC 7317 (14.8) is out to the left. Out further to the upper right of the main group is NGC 7320C at magnitude 16.6.
Galaxy NGC 7331 “Caldwell 30” 40 million light years. 12.1′ x 1.0′ magnitude 10.4. The other lenticular unbarred spirals NGC 7335, 7336 and barred spiral galaxy NGC 7340, elliptical galaxy NGC 7340. They are 332, 365, 348 and 294 million light years distant, respectively.
Discovered by William Hershel in 1784,
Stephan’s Quintet is a grouping of 5 galaxies, forming a compact group of galaxies. In the constellation of Pegasus, discovered in 1877 by Edouard Stephan, also known as Hickson Compact Group 92. NGC 7318B collides with the group and a shock wave larger than our own Milky Way galaxy spread between the galaxies. NGC 7320 is only a foreground galaxy at 39 million light years. The other five form a group 220-330 million light years away.