SUNSET: 
0
Photographer:
KuriousGeorge
Location of Photo:
Julian, CA
Date/Time of photo:
July 31- August 6, 2021
Equipment:
Planewave CDK24, L600.
Description:
It's not often that we think of galaxies in the small constellation of Lacerta because it lies in the Milky Way region between Cygnus and Cassiopeia. There is however a section of the constellation that lies outside the Milky Way’s boundaries and approaches the border of Pegasus and it is here that we find the galaxies. This galaxy group is known as USGC U813. The group comprises of 8 galaxies including NGC 7265, NGC 7264, UGC 12013 and UGC 12007. NGC 7265 itself is an E/S0 galaxy with an active core. NED currently leans towards giving NGC 7265 a classification of S0 (lenticular). This type of galaxy is normally only found in galaxy clusters so it must be possible that the NGC 7265 group is or has been associated with a much larger group. The distance to the group is approximately 240 million light years. The whole group appears to be associated with the Perseus super cluster of galaxies. NGC 7265 itself was discovered by Edouard Stephan in 1876 using a 31” sliver on glass reflector whilst NGC 7264 was found by Marth using Lassell’s 48” speculum metal reflector from Malta in 1863. NGC 7263 does not appear to be part of the same group of galaxies. Steve Gottleib in his NGC notes has observed all of the NGC galaxies in this region but they are described as faint and he was observing from high clear California skies. NGC 7264 looks like a smaller version of the classic edge on NGC 4565 in Coma from the images.
