NGC 7331

A fascinating field in Pegasus, featuring NGC 7331, a spiral galaxy approximately 45 million light-years away, the smaller galaxies of the Deer Lick Group, and the famous Stephan's Quintet. What makes this field particularly interesting is the presence of faint Integrated Flux Nebula, foreground clouds of Milky Way dust illuminated by the combined light of our Galaxy. Interestingly, scientific studies have shown that some faint filaments in this very region are Galactic cirrus rather than tidal structures associated with distant galaxies. NGC 7331 itself contains a prominent ring of molecular gas and dust associated with star formation, while Stephan's Quintet is famous for the enormous shock waves generated by gravitational interactions between its galaxies. I'm particularly pleased with the excellent level of detail achieved, not only in NGC 7331 but also in the much smaller galaxies, where several fine structures are clearly resolved. References: Duc et al. (2018), Revisiting Stephan's Quintet with deep optical images, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, 475, L40-L44; WEAVE Collaboration (2024), WEAVE First Light Observations: Origin and Dynamics of the Shock Front in Stephan's Quintet, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 535, 2269-2290.