APOD: 2008 October 22 - Beautiful Spiral NGC 7331 (original) (raw)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2008 October 22
See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.

Explanation: A favorite target for astronomers, big, beautiful spiral galaxyNGC 7331is one of the brightergalaxies not found in Charles Messier's famous18th century catalog. About 50 million light-years distant in the northern constellationPegasus and similar in size to our own Milky Way Galaxy, NGC 7331 is often imaged as the foreground of avisual groupingthat includes an intriguing assortment of background galaxies some ten times farther away. This striking image of the well-studiedisland universe and environs was produced using data from theCalar Alto Observatory in southern Spain. Perhapsthe deepest view of the region yet, the image data were processed to reveal sharp details of all sizes in both bright and faint areas. A color balance was chosen so that white would be the result of averaging colors over the entire galaxy. The result shows off a wealth of remarkable features in NGC 7331 and its surroundings.