NGC 7331, the big galaxy in this image, appears in our constellation Pegasus. The galaxy is roughly 47,000,000 light years away. We see its spiral shape at a dramatic angle.
Equally
intriguing are the smaller background galaxies. Across the upper part
of the image, NGC 7337, NGC 7335, and NGC 7336 float over 7331 like
seagulls about to dive. NGC 7337 and 7335 lie far in the background,
probably ~300,000,000 light years away from us, over 6x further than 7331. NGC
7336 is another hundred million light years further still.
Besides
these, the image shows numerous other bits of fluff—galaxies all, many
of which may be even further away. Including the large systems, I count at least fifteen galaxies in
the image. Some of these are far in the background.
In addition to the galaxies, the image shows many stars in our own galaxy. Stars as dim as magnitude 20 appear in the frame.
This image was taken in four sessions in September 2017,
and is 66x720" (13.2 hours) with the SXVF-H9 through the CFF 290
Classical Cassegrain at f/8.11, an effective focal length of 2353mm.
The frames were shot through an Astronomik CLS filter from a red zone.
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