NGC 7331 - The Deer Lick Group - 2019 Version
Date: October 10, 2019
Cosgrove’s Cosmos Catalog ➤#0012
The Deer Lick group - The large galaxy is NGC 7331. The small galaxies around it are known as the fleas. (click to enlarge)
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About the Target
NGC7331 and a small cluster of galaxies are located in the constellation Pegasus - about 40 million light-years away. The group is known as the NGC7331 group or as the Deer Lick Group, and the small galaxies around it are known as the fleas.
Annotated Image
Annotated image of the Deer Lick Group was created with Pixinsight’s Imagesolver and AnotateImage scripts.
Location in the Sky
IAU/Sky & Telescope Constellation Chart of Pegasus with the location of the galaxy group indicated by a yellow arrow.
About the Project
After being away for vacation for a couple of weeks, I finally had a clear night to do some more astrophotography. It was a little tricky since we had an 83% moon out, and suddenly the evening seems to have gotten cold!
I have my first issues with Dew - so I will need to get some local heat straps set up to fight in the future. While this image may not have the most impressive aesthetics, it is interesting that the galaxies involved are very far away. The largest galaxy seen here is about 40 million light-years away. The small fuzzy patches around this are galaxies that are even further away. These smaller galaxies are roughly 300 million light-years away!
This image resulted from 35 frames of 180 seconds each.
Comment from 8-02-21 (when adding to this website)
There is not a lot of good I can say about this image! Clipped black sky background, most stars are saturated with very little color, poor sharpness, and generally lacking in detail. None of that seemed to bother me back then!
Capture Details
Lights
35 x 180 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C
Total integration of 1.75 hours
Cal Frames
not recorded
Capture Hardware
Scope: William Optics 132mm FLT F/7 APO
Guide Scope: Apterna 60mm
Camera: ZWO ASI294MC-Pro
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290Mini
Mount: Ioptron CEM60Polar Alignment: Ioptron Ipolar integrated alignment cameras
Software
Capture Software: Control: PHD2 Guider, Sequence Generator Pro controller
Image Processing: Deepsky Stacker, Photoshop, Coffee, extensive processing indecision and second-guessing, and much swearing…..
I was still learning to use the main rig, when I soon made my first modification. I was doing the Polar Alignment the old fashioned way - using an illuminated polar scope. This caused me to kneel down on the driveway and look up through the polar axis. This was killing my knees, my back and my neck! I hated it and I was sure I was not getting very good alignments with it…..