Tuesday, September 30, 2014

tried to find 7325 again

I asked Ian if he had the image from the weekend, the one he had taken quickly, as we tried to find NGC 7325, near NGC 7331 and Stephan's Quintet. At the time, he said 7325 did not appear in the image.

He sent me a bunch of astrophotographs he'd made. But not exactly the one I wanted.


NGC 7331 (aka Caldwell 30). Taken Aug 2010 with an AstroTech 8" RC with a single shot colour CCD camera (QHY8). He thought it interesting that Stephan's Quintet was just caught in the far bottom left. Yes, true, 7320 and 7318 A and B were just inside the corner. I like the little fuzzies above the big spiral, 7335 and 7340.


NGC 7331 again. This time with a RC 12.5" and SBIG from 2011. Ian shared he couldn't find the raw files. Too bad. It's a great galaxy image. Looks like more data. And better quality. This second image is rotated about 90° counterclockwise from the first. NGC 7335 is very obvious, to the left now.


Stephan's Quintet. Taken on the weekend at the CAO. Lovely. I like the wisps and tails off the individual galaxies. Ian said he quickly counted and found 25 galaxies within. I get over 30...

He went on to say that NGC 7325 in only in the first image. Sort of. 7326 is obvious, the little fuzzy, at about the 4 o'clock position, about 2/3rds of the way from the spiral nebula to the three bright stars. But 7325 is not all obvious. Curious. SkyTools 3 Pro has this to say:

object size magnitude (B)
7325 57" x 38" 14.90
7326 46" x 20" 15.80

I think this image shows that the galaxy is... challenging. Thank you. The first image validated our experience at the eyepiece. Not the image he had shot recently, but it would do. It showed 7325 is not easy. Perhaps the foreground star GSC 02743-2056 is mucking up the view? Or maybe it is a lot fainter and smaller than what we've been lead to believe...

All images copyright © Ian Wheelband. Used with permission.

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