5 major galaxies 9 minor asteroids

This field of 5 galaxies at a distance of about 220 million light-years lies in southern Pisces only a couple minutes of arc above Aquarius. The ecliptic runs diagonally through the upper right corner of my image. This may account for all the asteroids the photo bombed the image.

My main object was MCG -01-60-005. While NED gives it the rather normal classification of SB(s)d it appears more like a mess to me. It has a blue blob at the start of an "arm" at the west end of the bar and another not really connected to anything above the bar a bit east of center. Could this be what's left of a disturbing galaxy? The blue color may argue against this or the interaction caused a star burst in the core. Usually these are behind a dust cloud so not seen in ordinary light. So this is unlikely at best but why else is it so disturbed looking? A couple Tully-Fisher distance estimates puts it a bit closer at 180 million light-years. Considering its red shift pretty well matches the other 4 galaxies with red shift data at NED I think it may be more reliable. I measure it at about 75,000 light-years in size. Larger than most galaxies that look like it.

While odd looking MCG -01-60-005 has a normal classification it's just the opposite for IC 1501. It looks pretty much like a classic grand design spiral but has the classification of SAB(s)bc pec: with HII emission. It too has a red shift determined distance of 220 million light-years and a Tully-Fisher measurement of 230 million light-years. Again I'll go with the red shift here. What about it gives it the pec label? It looks darned ordinary to me. Must be either in the HII or other features not seen in ordinary light. It is a rather large spiral of 120,000 light-years in diameter. It was discovered on October 19, 1892 by Stephane Javelle.

NGC 7699 is the smallest of the NGC galaxies in this group. It's red shift distance is 230 million light-years. It is shown as SBa? by NED, Sa by the NGC project and Sa? by Seligman. So is it barred or not? While my image shows the star clouds often seen at the ends of a bar my resolution isn't sufficient. The SLOAN image however does show a faint bar so I'm going with NED on this one. I measure its size as 44,000 light-years making it by far the smallest of the 5. It was discovered by Albert Marth on November 18, 1864.

NGC 7700 is an edge on spiral that NED lists as S0+, Seligman and the NGC project say S0/a? and S0-a respectively. With such a prominent dust lane I'd go with Sa myself. It is 123,000 light-years across by my measurement. It too S0+was discovered by Albert Marth that November 18th night. Just to its west is the small round galaxy APMUKS(BJ) B233154.49-031351.7. It has no red shift data so it may be a companion or a distant spherical galaxy. I'd vote for the latter since neither galaxy looks disturbed in the slightest.

The last galaxy with distance data is NGC 7701. While it too looks rather normal for a elliptical like galaxy NED classifies it a S0o pec:. While it doesn't appear peculiar it is peculiar that the NGC project says it is Sb. I hope that's a typo! Seligman says So. Red shift puts it at 230 million light-years while Tully-Fisher says 200 million. Using the former I get a size of just over 100,000 light-years. You might suspect Albert Marth found it the same night as the others but this time William Herschel beat him to it on September 20, 1784. The two Marth found were apparently too faint for Herschel's scope. Marth used a 48" to find the other two. It isn't in either of the two Herschel 400 object observing programs.

For some time now asteroids have been few and far between in my images. Mostly because I've been working well away from the ecliptic. While not as confined to it as the planets they do usually stick within 20 degrees of it and get more common as you approach the ecliptic. Since the ecliptic runs though this field it isn't surprising there are 9 asteroids noted in the annotated image. A couple more should be there but this was a very poor night greatly reducing transparency. The nine that survived the bright skies and seeing are detailed in the annotated image.

The poor conditions got far worse when the color data was taken. It had to be blurred far more than I like which likely distorted color of stars seen against galaxies. The red image was so strong compared to blue and green that I suspect the red color of NGC 7700 and 7701 is too strong but I don't like adjusting features for color so left them as they came out. I really should have tried again for the color data. It looks "nice" but is highly suspect.

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

Rick

Beautiful image Rick. Certainly one of the better galaxies of late spring.

Stefan


"WA0CKY" schrieb im Newsbeitrag ...


NGC 6255 is a low surface brightness barred spiral galaxy toward the
upper middle of the keystone of Hercules about 42 million light-years
distant by redshift. Other measurements are all over the board ranging
from 56 to 104 million light-years with a median of 68 million
light-years. All indicate it is further than the redshift value. So
I'll assume the median value is the more reasonable one. At that
distance it is about 75,000 light-years across, rather typical for a
spiral though large for most low surface brightness ones I've imaged.
While it has a bright bar I see no core or central bulge.

On its east edge is a bright blue star cloud so bright it almost looks
like a field-star in my image. Several sources including NED say it is
a separate galaxy with HII emission though what few notes I find on it
say it is just a rich, dense star cloud in the galaxy. One reads: "The
galaxy has been noted to have a possible companion (HS 1653+3634) which
lies 75" to the east. It seems more likely from GALEX data that this
object is just a particularly bright, blue cluster complex in the
XUV-disk of NGC 6255." I tend to agree. Redshift would indicate that
is quite likely with that side if the galaxy rotating toward us reducing
the measured redshift slightly. I've marked it in the annotated image.


NGC 6225 was discovered on May 16, 1787 by William Herschel but being so
faint it didn't make either of the Herschel 400 observing lists. I
suspect it would be a difficult object for even a 16" scope seen
visually.

I moved it to the west from center as even in the 10 second framing
image I'd taken I saw what appeared to be two galaxy clusters well to
the east and wanted to better included them in the frame. Turns out that
was a good idea as they both show quite nicely. The galaxy was so faint
I'd hoped to get at least 8 frames of luminance and 3 for each color but
that meant two nights work in early July and the weather just didn't
cooperate. I took this data on July 3, my first July image but the
fifth luminance frame was severely hurt by dawn. I included it but
doubt it helped much if any. I put it back on the list for a second run
but that never happened so I went with the data I was able to get.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=5x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick


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WA0CKY