NGC 70 and friends, a.k.a. Arp 113
About the Object
The NGC 70 group, also known as VV166 or Arp 113 is q quite appealing object reminiscent of the much more famous Stephan's Quintett. It shows galaxies if various morphologies and the mutual proximity triggers bar instabilities, deformations and also a lot of tidal debris with a hint of a distorted shell structure (best visible in the monochrome image when you hover with the mouse over the image. The brighter members of the group include the spiral galaxies NGC 70, the elliptical galaxy NGC 71, and the barred spiral galaxy NGC 72, and the fainter members include NGC 69 and PGC 1185. The brightest galaxy in the group, the elliptical galaxy NGC 68, is probably not a physical member of the group but a chance alignment.
Observation Notes
The area is interesting also owing to the number of background galaxies and the more loosely bound members of the NGC 70 group, so I decided to offer on astrobin several options: the full frame (revision A), the full zoom-in on the core of the group (revision C) and a compromise which puts the main group in the lower left corner and the spiral galaxy PGC1154 into the upper corner. Revision E/F/G is my favorite and I used it also as the final frame in this posting. Revision D is the annotated Revision A.
Data were taken on 2025 August 30 and 31 as well as on 2025 September 2 and 3.
Technical Details
View the full-resolution image together with complete acquisition and processing details on AstroBin.
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