I absolutely love this fascinating trio of galaxies. NGC 6769 6770 and 6771 in the Southern Hemisphere. I kept a wide field of the view of the other smaller DSO’s and zoomed into the trio too.
Thank you Mike Selby for the data from your observatory in Chile and the help to process this amazing set of galaxies. Imaged on the CDK 1000 at El Sauce, Obstech, Chile. Processed in Pixinsight, Maxim and Photoshop.
Details:
Both NGC 6769 and NGC 6770 are receding at similar velocities of about 3800 km/s, while NGC 6771 is receding at a slightly higher rate of 4200 km/s.
The central bulge in all three galaxies are of similar brightness. NGC 6771 has an interesting boxy shape which is indeed a rare occurrence among galaxies. It is unusual in that it has two comparatively straight dark lanes and a fainter arc that curves towards the third galaxy
Both NGC 6769 and NGC 6770 are spiral galaxies, yet very different. NGC 6769 has very tightly wound spiral arms, while NGC 6770 has two major spiral arms, one of which is fairly straight pointing towards the outer disc of NGC 6769. The blue color of the spiral arms indicate the presence of many star forming regions.