NGC 7727-ARP 222

NGC 7727, also known as Arp 222, is a face on spiral galaxy in Aquarius.

First discovered by William Herschel in 1785, the galaxy has numerous star streams and plumes associated with it which are probably the result of a merger with another spiral galaxy about 1 billion years ago. It may take another billion years for this merger to settle down. It was this odd shape that led to its inclusion in Arp’s catalogue of peculiar galaxies. The support for the merger scenario comes from the fact that there are two star like objects near the core of NGC 7727, one of which may be the core of the merging galaxy and the other the main core of NGC 7727.

NGC 7727 does not seem to have a large reservoir of hydrogen gas to form new stars so it is probably going to become an elliptical galaxy in the future. Images from GALEX, an ultraviolet satellite, show very little star formation going on at the current time in NGC 7727 compared to its neighbor NGC 7724.

Imaged in LRGB on our Planewave CDK 1000 at Observatorio, El Sauce, Chile

Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson

Image Below

Telescope: Planewave 24" f6.7 on a Planewave HD Mount Camera: SBIG 16803

Taken at Stellar Winds Observatory, a/k/a Stan Watson Observatory in Animas, NM.

Exposure: L,R,G,B,Ha 375,225,225,225,660