NGC7331 - The Deer Lick Galaxy (and friends)

That's a nice little cluster of galaxies I never heard of, or seen before. And a great image to have it introduced to me. The portrait version is a nice touch. Colours are very natural looking. I'd say there's more detail to capture as you truncated a galaxy along the upper-right edge. Could this be a mosaic area of sky?

Seanie.

That's a great pic Dave. Very clean & with good depth.

Dave,

Excellent image of an excellent grouping. Gotta add it to my list as a future target for imaging. Thanks for the heads up!

Ok, now I'm going to show my ignorance... and laziness (can't be bothered reaching for Burnham's): What for it called "The Deer-Lick Galaxy"?

Well I did grab Burnhams and there is no mention of the name, as it turns out it's not NGC 7331 which is called the Deer lick Galaxy but the whole grouping is known as the "Deer Lick Galaxy Group". It turns out that the name wa given "in commemoration of one of the finest nights of viewing EVER, at Deer Lick Gap, just off the Blue Ridge Parkway, in the NC mountains," by persons unnamed. So it seems its one of those newer 'made up' names that stuck.

Ref: www.de-regt.com/Astronomy/DeerLick.htm

Could this be a mosaic area of sky? ;)Seanie.

Now yer talkin' boy!

Stephans Quintet is just a short 30' from the centre of NGC 7331 a single frame of my 10" and CCD away so a mosaic would definitely be in order.

Seanie the reason that little galaxy is cropped unfortunately is that the images used to make this image were taken over two separate nights. I actually forgot I had the first set. However the camera alignment beteen the two were slightly different and as such I had to crop the outer portions. I considered cropping a little more and removing that outer galaxy but I thought there's just enough of it there to make it worth including.

Nice one Dave. Not one on my list at the minute but I know what you mean about some objects being a complete jinx. Spent three months getting M33.

Anto wrote:

Excellent image of an excellent grouping. Gotta add it to my list as a future target for imaging. Thanks for the heads up

OK guys STOP POSTING IMAGES. He's using us a testing ground and then blowing us away with his perfect skies. :mrgreen: