Combination of 33, 3 minute images unfiltered.
SBIG STL-1001E CCD. 20" f/6.8 Dall-Kirkham cassegrain telescope at prime focus.
NGC 5953 and NGC 5954 are a pair of interacting galaxies in Serpens that I imaged when they were in the field of an asteroid I was studying. This asteroid is visible in the image above as the short line towards the bottom of the image. The 2 galaxies have started to distorte the shape of each other as well as starting to fling out stars in what will eventually become tidal tails. At around magnitude 12, these 2 galaxies should be visible in an 8" telescope.
The bright galaxy to the lower right is NGC 5951, while just below the interacting pair is the faint, edge-on galaxy PGC 55478.