Rick,

great job to show so many details in the dust lane of this small galaxy.

Stefan


"WA0CKY" schrieb im Newsbeitrag ...


I put IC 480/2MFGC 6287 on my to-do list when I saw an amateur image of
it that showed it as very blue. An edge on galaxy may be blue at the
ansae but usually is quite reddened for much of its length so this was
highly unusual. Looking at the POSS images I thought I saw the same.
But after processing I find it is quite typical of flat edge on galaxies
so wasn't blue after all. Still it is a flat galaxy though not flat
enough to make it into the Flat Galaxy Catalog but is in the 2 micron
version which is a bit more lax on entrance requirements. Also it's
dust lane is not straight as is typically seen and there are several
bright blobs seen against the edge on galaxy. Several are listed at NED
as being separate galaxies though I'm quite sure they are just star
clouds in the galaxy as their redshift is very similar to IC 480.
Though seeing such clouds is rare in edge on galaxies. It is classified
by NED as Sbc and Sbc? by CSeligman. It was discovered by Stephane
Javelle on March 18, 1892. It is a rather large spiral at about 125,000
light-years in diameter assuming the redshift distance of 220 million
light-years.

The field turns out to be rather interesting. It is located in
northeastern Gemini not far, 2.5 degrees, from Pollux. To its southwest
is the radio galaxy AGC 172071 also at a redshift of 220 million
light-years. It appears to be a strange dwarf galaxy. NED's only
catalog entry for it is from a radio catalog. None of the visual
catalogs seems to have an entry for it.

To the northeast of IC 480 is another highly strange looking galaxy, PGC
22209 at 450 million light-years. It appears rather disrupted having
various parts, dim and rather bright. Tucked in between two bright
regions is what NED classifies as another galaxy, ASK 180095.0. It is
shown to be 500 million light-years distant. A bit too much difference
to be just part of the galaxy so likely is a separate galaxy behind it.
It is a tiny spherical object. Nearby to the east PGC 022221 is a two
armed spiral in which the southern arm is much broader and brighter than
the northern one. It is some 830 million light-years distant. It is
lists as an SC galaxy by NED. To its east is the S0 galaxy PGC 022227
which has what appears to be a rather obvious dust lane on its eastern
side.

To the southeast of IC 480 is small (in appearance) edge on ASK
204215.0. If brighter it likely would make one or both of the flat
galaxy catalogs but is too faint for either. It is small only because
of its distance of 1.17 billion light-years. It is actually larger than
IC 480 at 150,000 light-years in size.

The field contains several quasars (Q) and quasar candidates (QC). The
candidates have only a photometric redshift which can sometimes be
incorrect. NED lists dozens in the field. I've identified only those
NED seems to feel are likely valid but still calls them candidates until
more data is in.

Two asteroids were caught in the lower part of the image. See the
annotated image for details.

Transparency was a bit better than I've had, still below what used to be
normal, which allowed me to pick up some galaxies out as far as 4 and 5
billion light-years. They are marked in the annotated image.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick


--
WA0CKY