ASTRO: KKH 005 a very small possibly Maffei galaxy

KKH 005 is a low surface brightness dwarf irregular galaxy not even
recognized as a galaxy until 2001. Most consider it a member of the
Maffei/IC342 group though it is located at its very edge. The one paper
I found on it says it "appears to be well resolved into stars." I found
a couple HST frames of the galaxy that are quite noisy. Not able to
tell the difference between noise and stars I've not tried to process
it. The Planetary camera appears to resolve a lot of widely spaced
stars and noise specks. The galaxy is nearby and has a blue shift so
that is unavailable for a distance estimate. The one paper I found on
it calculates a distance of about 14 million light-years based on the
tip of the red giant branch. Since the brightness of these stars is
thought to be known, by comparing this to the apparent magnitude and
accounting for dimming for gas and dust between us and the galaxy, its
distance can then be calculated. Usually I can see stars in galaxies
this close but Maffei galaxies are so obscured it isn't surprising I
don't see any stars.

Since the galaxy is about 40 arc seconds long it is very small.
Assuming the 14 million light-year distance it is only about 2,700
light-years across. A small dwarf indeed.

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

Rick
--
Prefix is correct. Domain is arvig dot net

Rick,

no tall dwarf here ;-)
Must be much further away than most dwarfs I have seen so far.

Stefan

"Rick Johnson" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...

KKH 005 is a low surface brightness dwarf irregular galaxy not even
recognized as a galaxy until 2001. Most consider it a member of the
Maffei/IC342 group though it is located at its very edge. The one paper
I found on it says it "appears to be well resolved into stars." I found
a couple HST frames of the galaxy that are quite noisy. Not able to
tell the difference between noise and stars I've not tried to process
it. The Planetary camera appears to resolve a lot of widely spaced
stars and noise specks. The galaxy is nearby and has a blue shift so
that is unavailable for a distance estimate. The one paper I found on
it calculates a distance of about 14 million light-years based on the
tip of the red giant branch. Since the brightness of these stars is
thought to be known, by comparing this to the apparent magnitude and
accounting for dimming for gas and dust between us and the galaxy, its
distance can then be calculated. Usually I can see stars in galaxies
this close but Maffei galaxies are so obscured it isn't surprising I
don't see any stars.

Since the galaxy is about 40 arc seconds long it is very small.
Assuming the 14 million light-year distance it is only about 2,700
light-years across. A small dwarf indeed.

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

Rick
--
Prefix is correct. Domain is arvig dot net