PGC 120 & 129, The Taffy Galaxies (Bill Dirks)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Pegasus (Peg) · Contains: PGC 120 · PGC 129

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PGC 120 & 129, The Taffy Galaxies

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PGC 120 & 129, The Taffy Galaxies

Aftermath of a face-on collision between two spiral galaxies about 25 million years ago. The galaxies have passed through each other, and have been distorted by gravitational effects. Streams of gas and dust stretch across the widening gap between them. Also known as UGC 12914 and UGC 12915, or VV 254 in the catalog of interacting galaxies. About 200 million light-years away.

Rarely imaged. The small apparent size makes this object a challenge, the pair is barely 3 arc-minutes across. I only found 10 other images on Astrobin.

Captured with a monochrome camera and LRGB filters over nine nights. Used the native 2350mm F/10 focal length of the telescope. Good to very good seeing most nights, especially after midnight. This is my sharpest galaxy image yet in angular resolution, but a close crop on a small target.

Original
B
Final
C

B

Description: Slightly enhanced color.

Uploaded: ...

C

Description: Reduce appearance of "background" dust.

Uploaded: ...

Insane focal lengths

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
PixInsight job	RW9E9X4JCRYB0Z0IY6UMUKGZ0RBQOO8T
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	00h01m38s.992
RA (top/left)	00h01m52s.466
RA (top/right)	00h01m54s.287
RA (bottom/right)	00h01m25s.537
RA (bottom/left)	00h01m23s.731

Dec (center)	+23°29′28″.87
Dec (top/left)	+23°22′46″.58
Dec (top/right)	+23°35′58″.43
Dec (bottom/right)	+23°36′10″.89
Dec (bottom/left)	+23°22′58″.88

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PGC 120 & 129, The Taffy Galaxies

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PGC 120 & 129, The Taffy Galaxies

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