HCG 91

Hickson Compact Galaxy Group 91
Located 320 million light years from here in Piscis. The largest galaxy in the group NGC 7214 is only 1.4’ in apparent size. The group’s three spiral galaxies are undergoing very heavy gravitational interaction with their interactions producing faint but visible tidal tails over 100,000 light-years long. The interaction has caused major star formation to occur. Ultimately, they will merge into a large single galaxy, a process now understood to be a normal part of the evolution of galaxies. If you look carefully, you will see faint tidal tails, some of the small background galaxies are as far away as 2 billion light years.
Imaged in LRGB on our CDK 1000 and RiDK 700 at El Sauce, Obstech, Chile
Image Processing: Mike Selby. Integration Time 30 hours