Great post, Mark; I've read it with interest.

We need to resolve the compression issue on this site - the annotated image at the end would be really useful at a good resolution.

I first saw the main galaxy (NGC 772) in my 4" f/5.5 Televue from Cherry Springs. My notes speak only of the redshift-derived and redshift-intependent distances gleaned (at that time) from NED. This galaxy turned out to have the largest redshift-independent distance estimate in the Herschel 400 observing list. Here are these notes:

"The most distant, at 174 Mly, is NGC 772 in Aries, according to the estimate based on a class II supernova. The two recorded supernovae in this galaxy both occurred in 2003... Its redshift distance is only 98 Mly."

Last month I reobserved it with my 12" SCT, also from Cherry Springs, as part of my complete Herschel catalog survey, which includes reobservation of particularly interesting Herschel 400 objects. The notes from this observation (at 125-375x, nominally) are rather terse: "Companion seen. Proximal part of arm defined by 2 (invisible) knots seen vaguely." This arm segment is about half-way up the arm in most photographs, directly N of the companion.