Russell Kille Astro Photos
Celestron CPC 1100 Altazimuth Mount
Hyperstar ASI 224MC Non Cooled

NGC 5981, 5982, 5985
Magnitude: 13.0, 11.1, 11.1
Distance: Aprox: 100 million light-years
Constellation: Draco

From left to right are edge-on spiral NGC 5981, elliptical galaxy NGC 5982, and face-on spiral NGC 5985 -- all within this single telescopic field of view spanning a little more than half the width of the full moon. While the group is far too small to be a galaxy cluster and has not been catalogued as a compact group, these galaxies all do lie roughly 100 million light-years from planet Earth. On close examination with spectrographs, the bright core of the striking face-on spiral NGC 5985 shows prominent emission in specific wavelengths of light, prompting astronomers to classify it as a Seyfert, a type of active galaxy.