UGCA 86 A really strange Maffei galaxy

Rick,

an unusual galaxy indeed. It's form reminds me of the planetary nebula NGC
6765.

Stefan


"WA0CKY" schrieb im Newsbeitrag ...


UGCA 86/PCA 14241 is a nearby Im galaxy likely part of the Maffei 1
group of highly obscured galaxies. It is located only 1.5 degrees
southeast of IC 342. One paper indicates UGCA may be tidally
interacting with IC 342. It certainly is a distorted looking affair.
Discovered first (it has been independently rediscovered a couple times
since then) in 1974 it is described by the UGCA in 1974 as "...several
regions visible on red POSS; probably connected; intragalactic object?"
So that that time it wasn't certain this was even a galaxy. Being so
obscured its true appearance may be rather different from what is seen
in optical images. Some areas are quite reddened by dust while others
still somewhat blue. Are these blue regions less reddened or is the
color difference real. I suspect both might be involved. NED has a
wide range of distance estimates using various means. They range from
2.6 million light-years to 14.3 with a median value of 8.6 million
light-years. The generally accepted distance to IC 342 is 10 million
light-years which would also be the distance to UGCA 86 if it is
interacting with it. Heavily obscured galaxies like this one are very
hard to study! For example NED shows the core object in the bright blue
region in the southeastern part of the galaxy as VII Zw 009, a galaxy
but then notes: "This may be part of the galaxy UGCA 086." The galaxy
seems fairly large, the part I can see in my raw data measures out at
9.7 minutes across. At 10 million light-years that is about 28,000
light-years across. It isn't as big as it looks being so close.
Typical for an irregular galaxy so we may be seeing much of its extent.

The only other galaxy in the image worth pointing out is HFLLZOA L090.
It is to the east southeast of UGCA 86 and has a very large but faint
red disk around a bright core region. Redshift puts it at 110 million
light-years. That makes it only about 40,000 light-years across. How
much we don't see due to dust in our galaxy blocking the view I don't
know. NED classifies it as U whatever that means. I asked at NED what
they meant but never got a reply. Since I'm picking this one up at 11
times the distance of UGCA 86 it makes me wonder if UGCA 86 is all that
heavily obscured or is HFLLZOA L090 a really bright galaxy that would be
fantastic if not for being heavily obscured? The truth likely lies in
between the these two options.

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

Rick


--
WA0CKY