Combination of 5, 3 minute exposures, SBIG ST9XE CCD camera.
300mm f/6 newtonian telescope at prime focus.
NGC 7172 is an interesting edge-on spiral galaxy in Piscis Austrinus. Easily visible in an 8" telescope, it appears as a fairly small but bright patch of light, with a bright, star-like nucleus. Prominently visible in the image above is a lane of dust across the galaxy. Unfortunately this is not visible in small to meduim telescopes.
NGC 7172 is a bright member of a small sub-group of the Grus-Indus galaxy cluster. The group is centred on the gaint elliptical galaxy, NGC 7176, which is the bright galaxy below NGC 7172. NGC 7176 appears to be interacting with one or possibly two other galaxies, the almost edge-on spiral NGC 7174, and the elliptical galaxy NGC 7173. Notice that all three galaxies are surrounded by a very faint haze. This is also visible on the digitized POSS plates, and is possibly made up of stars ejected by the galaxy interactions. There are a number of other faint galaxies in the image. Most of these are anonymous, but one that is not, is the 14th magnitude, edge-on spiral PGC 67910, partly visible on the left-hand edge.
