NGC 772 is a stunning early spiral system seen 37° from edge-on. It has several thightly coiled arms and one strong, asymmetric arm crossing the disk westwards. That one bright arm coils around the nucleus like a fiddlehead unfolding, which is why i call it the Fiddlehead Galaxy.
The distance to NGC 772 is about 106 million lightyears and its diameter is mearly 220'000 lightyears, roughtly twice the diameter of our Milky Way. The bright galaxy lower left is NGC 770 with a diameter of 40'000 lightyears, which is assumed to be a real companion of NGC 772 at a distance of about 160'000 lightyears.
[O'Meara, wikipedia.org]
Date: 11/16/2010
Size:
Image Data
Telescope: RCOS 14.5" f/8
Mount: ASA DDM85
Detector: STL-11000M
Filters: Astrodon Gen 2
Exposures: LRGB 590:140:160:140 min
