This seldom imaged object lies quite far away at 220 million ly, and it took a particularly long (14 hour) image to bring out some details in it. Its often referred to as “The Atoms For Peace” galaxy because its upper area faintly resembles the orbits of particles inside atoms. NGC7252 is the result of 2 galaxies that collided about a billion years ago.

Note a number of round objects forming a ring around the interior. I’m informed that they are star forming complexes, each a few hundred light years across. Apparently, regularly spaced complexes commonly form in rings when there are gravitational instabilities. Since that requires a certain amount of mass for a collapse, you have to go some distance away before another region has enough mass to also collapse.

PlaneWave 12.5″ Astrograph with an ST11000 camera, Astrodon filters, and ASA gearless DDM-85 mount. F/8 LRGB (73/8min L, 14/8min each 2×2 RGB).