{"id":596979,"date":"2026-09-11T10:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T10:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/596979\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T10:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T10:08:12","slug":"the-sky-today-on-friday-september-11-visit-the-deer-lick-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/596979\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sky Today on\u00a0Friday, September 11: Visit the Deer Lick Group"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tSpiral NGC 7331 dominates a group of five galaxies in Pegasus, perfect for observing in tonight\u2019s moonless skies.\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/NGC7331-035_crop120.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"A detailed telescopic photograph of NGC 7331, a large spiral galaxy shown nearly edge-on and tilted slightly, with a bright golden core, blue spiral arms with dusty brown lanes, and a diffuse outer halo. Several smaller background galaxies are visible to the left, including a group of four elliptical and lenticular galaxies known as the Deer Lick Group. The field is scattered with orange and white foreground stars against a black background.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tNGC 7331 dominates the Deer Lick Group of galaxies, surrounded by four smaller, more distant \u201cfleas.\u201d Credit: Bernhard Hubl\/ccdguide.com\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/the-sky-this-week\/the-sky-this-week-from-september-4-to-11-2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sky This Week<\/a>\u00a0column.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">September 10: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-today-thursday-september-10-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Uranus is stationary<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">With dark, moonless skies tonight, let\u2019s go galaxy hunting. By 9 P.M. local daylight time, Pegasus is already high in the east, the Great Square easily giving away its location. The northern part of this constellation holds a group of five galaxies, the brightest of which is NGC 7331.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Called the Deer Lick Group, you\u2019ll find this gaggle of galaxies just 4.4\u00b0 north of 3rd-magnitude Eta (\u03b7) Pegasi. NGC 7331 is the easiest to view, a stunning spiral galaxy glowing at magnitude 9.5. If your observing site is particularly dark, you might be able to spot it through binoculars. Any telescope will show it, with larger apertures offering ever more detail. It\u2019s highly inclined to our line of sight, though not exactly edge on, allowing you to see into the center, toward the bright nucleus wrapped in fainter spiral arms. It stretches some 11\u2019 long and 4\u2019 wide.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The four remaining galaxies in this group are sometimes called the \u201cfleas\u201d because they\u2019re much smaller and fainter. They are NGC 7335 (magnitude 13.4), NGC 7340 (magnitude 14.9), NGC 7336 (magnitude 15.0), and NGC 7337 (magnitude 15.2). However, they\u2019re not physically smaller than NGC 7331, but instead much farther away, hinting that this \u201cgroup\u201d isn\u2019t really a true family, but just a chance superposition on the sky.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sunrise: 6:37 A.M.<br \/>Sunset: 7:15 P.M.<br \/>Moonrise: 7:09 A.M.<br \/>Moonset: 7:24 P.M.<br \/>Moon Phase: Waxing crescent (1%)<br \/>*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W. The Moon\u2019s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alison Klesman\u00a0is senior editor of\u00a0Astronomy\u00a0magazine. She holds a Ph.D. in astronomy and has studied a variety of topics, from minor planets to supermassive black holes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List Spiral NGC 7331 dominates a group of five galaxies in Pegasus, perfect for observing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[111,139,69,12839,147,62517],"class_list":["post-596979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-observing","tag-science","tag-sky-tonight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}