Near the upper right corner in this photo is the galaxy we call NGC 7331, a graceful spiral galaxy about 40 million light years from Earth, seen in the constellation Pegasus. NGC 7331 was discovered by William Herschel in 1784 - somehow Charles Messier missed it when compiling his well known catalog of deep space objects. NGC 7331 is similar in size and structure to the galaxy we inhabit, the Milky Way.

Near the lower left corner is a group of galaxies known as Stephan's Quintet. Four of these galaxies are in close physical proximity to each other, at a distance of about 290 million light years from Earth. They are so close together, in fact, that they are interacting violently with each other, resulting is strong x-ray emissions detectable here on Earth, and indicating that temperatures of millions of degrees are present in the inter-galactic medium that separates them. The fifth galaxy in Stephan's Quintet, the larger and bluer of the five, is actually in the foreground, about 40 million light years from Earth.