NGC 7331 (Caldwell 30) is a spiral galaxy about 46 million light years away in the constellation of Pegasus. It is a vibrant and colorful galaxy, often referred to as the Milky Way’s “twin” due to it being of a similar size and mass to our own galaxy. It is visible in amateur telescopes as a faint smudge if the sky is dark. In the images below, the smaller galaxies to the left of the main galaxy are a chance line-of-sight alignment. These four galaxies are much more distant than NGC 7331 (about 320 million light years) and are nothing to do with the main galaxy. This collection of galaxies (NGC 7331 and the distant background galaxies are collectively referred to as the Deer Lick Group named after the Deer Lick gap in the mountains of North Carolina by astronomer Tomm Lorenzin who liked to observe from there. NGC 7331…

Abell 1656 Abell 1656 – The Coma Cluster – is a cluster of galaxies in the constellation of Coma Berenices, located about 320-330 million lights years away. The cluster is dominated by two supergiant elliptical galaxies NGC 4874 and NGC 4889 which are visible in this image in the centre below the bright blue star (which is local to our own galaxy). NGC 4889 is the largest and most massive galaxy in the local universe and is vsoble in modest amateur telescopes despite the great distance. It contains the most massive black hole yet discovered. The galaxy itself is estimated to have more than 1000 times the mass of opur own Milky Way galaxy. Image Technical Data Image acquired spring 2020 (during the Coronavirus lockdown) in my backyard in Nottingham, UK. It was acquired with TEC 140 refractor (with field flattener) with Atik460 CCD camera and Astrodon LRGB Gen2 E…