It Takes a Chance
Galaxy Grouping in Pegasus


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If you understand the variables, you can calculate the odds. For example, over ten million people share a 27% chance of a major earthquake hitting San Francisco in the next 30 years. Conversely, the odds of earth being hit by an asteroid have been recently revised downward to only 1 in 500,000. Between these extreme probabilities, we live our lives.

But, what are the chances that six relatively bright galaxies, at wildly differing distances, would line up to form an apparent compact grouping in the sky covering an area about the size of a pin head held at arm's length- the answer is astronomical, of course.

The easily identifiable galaxies in this group are (left to right, from the top) NGC7340, NGC7337, NGC7335, NGC7336, NGC7331 (the largest), NGC3727 (the upper fuzzy component of the red-blue "double star" below the right edge of the largest) & NGC 7326.

NGC7337, NGC7335, NGC7336 are ten times farther away and would dwarf the largest in this scene if their distances were equalized.


August 1- 28, 2005

RCOS 20- inch, SBIG STL-11000
225 minutes Luminance, 90 minutes Red, 54 minutes Green, 108 minutes Blue (1X1)