Instrument

Celestron C11 @  ~f/10.48 (2930 mm fl) 1.26 arcsec / pixel. 

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

SBIG STL-11000 w/ internal filter wheel, AstroDon Filters

Acquisition Data

12/30/2007 to 12/31/2007  Chino Valley... with CCDAutoPilot3

Exposure

Lum    180 min.  (18 x 10 bin 2x2)
RGB    180 min.  (  6 x 10 bin 3x3) each

Software

CCDSoft, Sigma-Clip, Photoshop CS w/ the Fits Liberator plugin, Paint Shop Pro,and Noel Carboni's actions

Comment

North is to the top.

NGC 772 is a spiral galaxy, approximately 130 million light-years away, in the constellation Aries. Below and slightly to the right, is the satellite galaxy NGC 770, which is probably responsible for NGC 772’s peculiar shape. Also, there are a lot of dwarf galaxies visible in the immediate neighborhood that may also be interacting with NGC 772.

The lower image is from the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED). In this image there are 10 known galaxies, shown as blue ellipses. The blue squares are believed to be dwarf galaxies. The dimmest visible in the upper image is at magnitude 21, most are at about 18 to 19. The blue triangles are radio sources.