NGC6872 Galaxies in Pavo
The barred spiral galaxy NGC 6872 near the center is comparatively distant, almost 300 million light-years away. It extends over more than 7 arcmin in the sky and its real size is thus nearly 750,000 light-years. It is in fact one of the largest known, barred spiral galaxies. It is accompanied by a smaller close interacting galaxy, IC 4970.
Moving to the up-right there are the two elliptical galaxies NGC 6876/6877, further out the two colorful spiral galaxies NGC 6880 and IC 4981.
Edge-on IC4972 is situated top-left of the two elliptical galaxies.
Image data:
LRGB (L 15x20m, R 6x20m, G 6x20m, B 6x20m) total 11 h. Seeing 0.7-1.1 arcsec
Processing: Johannes Schedler
80cm f/7 Astrooptik Keller corrected cassegrain, FLI Proline 16803, Baader Filters,
Find a close-up on NGC6872 in 50/100% size below:
Find a close-up centered on NGC6876/6877 in 50/100% size below: