SUPERCEDED-NEWER VERSION AVAILABLE---NGC 772 - A Peculiar Galaxy in Aries (2011 Version)
SUPERCEDED-NEWER VERSION AVAILABLE---NGC 772 - A Peculiar Galaxy in Aries (2011 Version)
SUPERCEDED-NEWER VERSION AVAILABLE---NGC 772 - A Peculiar Galaxy in Aries (2011 Version)
NGC 772 is a fascinating galaxy that is also known as Arp 78. Because it is very close to and gravitationally interacting with NGC 770 (the elliptical galaxy immediately below NGC 772), the spiral arms and shape of NGC 772 are distorted. Additonally, this field has a great many smaller galaxies. In the original TIFF image, I can identify 15 objects which are obviously galaxies and many dozens of faint galaxies scattered throught the image. As an example, close inspection of this photo will reveal a collection of about 13 very small galaxies just above the main galaxy (they look like small spots above NGC 772).

In this image, North is Up. This image is cropped to 58% of the original full frame.

Exposure Details
Lens Celestron C-8 SCT with Celestron focal reducer
Focal Length 1260mm
Focal Ratio f/6.3
 
Mount Schaefer GEM - 7 1/2
Guiding 80mm f/11 guidescope with PHD Guiding
 
Camera Canon 20Da
Exposure 170 subexposures of 180 seconds at ISO 1600 - 8 1/2 hours of total exposure
Calibration 30 darks, 30 flats, 30 bias
 
Date October 22, 23, and 24, 2011
Temperature
SQM Reading
Seeing 4 of 5 on 10/22 and 10/23, 3 of 5 on 10/24
Location Pine Mountain Club, California
 
Software Used Images Plus 4.0 for camera control, calibration, stacking and digital development. Photoshop CS5 used for flat fielding, curves, color correction, saturation adjustments, star shrinking, noise reduction, and high pass filter. HLVG for additional color correction, Carboni Actions for additional saturation adjustments.
Notes This image was a lot of fun to process, as trying to bring out the faint galaxies and the extended regions of the galaxy was a bit challenging. This is an object that is not commonly photographed, so I'm pleased that my image came out as well as it did.

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NGC 772 - A Peculiar Galaxy in Aries