Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Draco (Dra)  ·  Contains:  NGC 5976  ·  NGC 5981  ·  NGC 5982  ·  NGC 5985
The Draco Group of Galaxies: NGC5985, NGC 5981, & NGC 5982, Cosgrove's Cosmos (Patrick Cosgrove)
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The Draco Group of Galaxies: NGC5985, NGC 5981, & NGC 5982

The Draco Group of Galaxies: NGC5985, NGC 5981, & NGC 5982, Cosgrove's Cosmos (Patrick Cosgrove)
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The Draco Group of Galaxies: NGC5985, NGC 5981, & NGC 5982

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Description

The Draco Group of Galaxies are a string of three primary galaxies that can be seen in a common field of view in the constellation Draco. The largest and roundest one, seen at the bottom of the frame is NGC 5985. This has a bared spiral structure and the arms are clearly visible in this shot. NGC 5981 can be seen at the top of the frame. This is also a barred spiral galaxy, but it is seen almost edge on. The galaxy in the center is NGC 5982. It is an elliptical galaxy - which are typically seen as nebulous without any obvious structure. These galaxies are approximately 100 Million light years from earth.

These are kind of small for my scope, but I the grouping was kind of cool! I love the thought that I am looking at 3 complete galaxies, whose photons have traveled 100 million years to finally hit my camera sensor! It boggles the mind....

This image resulted from 47 x 180 captures. Captured with a William Optics 132 mm FLT APO scope on an IOptron CEM60 mount. Camera was a ZWO ASI294MC-Pro. Capture was done using Sequence Generator Pro and PHD2 Guiding. Processing was with DeepSky Stacker, Pixinsight, and Photoshop.

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The Draco Group of Galaxies: NGC5985, NGC 5981, & NGC 5982, Cosgrove's Cosmos (Patrick Cosgrove)