The image is of two galaxies in the same field of view, Messier-77 (M77) and NGC1055. M77 is the roundish galaxy at the top of the image and NGC1055 is the edge-on spiral galaxy with a bulge (creating a bit of a halo).
M77 has around a billion stars, so it is quite a bit smaller than the Milky Way. From Earth it is only around 7 minutes of arc across so it is hard for an earth-bound telescope to get a lot of detail. It is 47 million light years away, tilted at an angle of approximately 40 degrees.
NGC1055 is a spiral galaxy that we see edge-on. The long axis is also ~7 minutes of arc. It is in the same region of space as M77 (52 million light years distant) and the two galaxies are considered part of a small cluster.
Both of these galaxies are difficult to image for the same reason - namely a very bright center and a very faint outer region. It's convenient that they also appear nearby in the sky and can be imaged together.
The image shown was captured on October 6, 2021 at the Lac Teeples Deep Sky Observatory. Approximately 80 1 minute frames were retained and stacked to form this image.
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