An interestingly shaped grouping of galaxies, the Whale Galaxy (NGC 4631) is a barred-spiral galaxy viewed edge on from earth. This is the same classification as the Milky Way, and about 30 million light years distant so it gives us a way to observe a similar galaxy from a different angle. It has a small companion dwarf galaxy, NGC 4627.
Also interacting is the Hockey stick Galaxy, NGC 4656. This is a distorted galaxy; the highly irregular hockey stick shape. While older information classified this as an interacting pair of galaxies with the Whale Galaxy, apparently newer theories feel this was a one-time interaction with NGC 4627.
Technical Card
Mount: Celestron AVX
Camera(s): ZWO ASI 2600mc pro, ZWO ASI 220 mini guide camera on an OAG
OTA: Celestron C8 SCT with 6.3 reducer
Filters: None
Exposure: 125 Lights @ 180 seconds
Annotated image:
This is an amazingly galaxy dense region of the sky. The PGC galaxy catalogue doesn’t identify most of the visible galaxies. I suspect there are several hundred visible. I’ve been struggling with how to annotate them is some reasonable fashion that actually conveys information.
For now, I’ll just post up one additional closeup. In the center is a surprisingly clear galaxy Z 159-39 about 200 million light years distant according to the Simbad database.
Sweetman Astrophotography 
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