Arp 192: Time to change the literature

It's not often an amateur observatory gets to correct the astronomical
literature but it appears my little project of imaging in color the Arp
galaxies I can reach from my latitude apparently got the ball rolling to
do just that. Early astronomers only had their eyes and thus were often
fooled. Many NGC objects are just stars for instance, Mars canals don't
exist nor does Vulcan. Photography helped eliminate the errors but if
you don't take a second image they can lead you astray as well. This
happened to Arp with his 192nd entry. Time on the 200" was difficult to
come by and his project ate up a lot of it. It appears he rarely if
ever, was able to take two images of his objects. But many other images
of Arp 192 have been taken since yet no one seems to have noticed the
main feature of the galaxy pair doesn't exist! Well it does but not as
Arp and others using his image thought. This will be a long post as the
story is rather long. I'll start with the basics as Arp and others saw
them.

ARP 192 NGC 3303, two interacting galaxies with a huge tidal spray.
Arp classed it in his category, Galaxies (not classifiable as S or E):
Narrow filaments. Indeed his often reproduced image shows a great jet
or spike that probably caused it to be put in this classification. Also
notes at NED say things like: "Very peculiar spiral with a compact
companion and a spike. Very faint outer extension." and "Main body 0.5 x
0.4 with stellar companion superimposed, loop + sharp jet, enormous
irregular plumes." Arp said; "Diffuse faint arms off both sides, spike
comes from stellar companion."

There things stood for 46 years until I imaged it and had a "What the
#&*@" reaction looking at my image and comparing it to Arp's. Others,
including Sloan had imaged it but somehow overlooked the obvious.

The famous spike doesn't exist! Over all these years and references to
the spike no one seems to have noticed! I was sure my image would have
shown it if it did exist. I find imagers saying that it apparently is
below their resolution ability. But the SDSS image is of sufficient
resolution and it doesn't show it yet no one noticed that I can find.
Still my image goes as deep and does have about the resolution of Arp's
image yet there's not even the slightest hint of the jet. Galaxy sized
events don't vanish this quickly.

I put out a few feelers but nothing came of them. Finally I blindly
emailed one of the contributors to the Jeff Knipe and Dennis Webb book
on the catalog who contacted the authors. The best suggestion we could
come up with was that it was an asteroid but to confirm that we needed
to know the exact date and time of Arp's image. Then it would take a
special request of Brian Marsden of the Minor Planet Center to run known
asteroids for that date. This wasn't an easy task. But despite a Cal
Tech librarian's best efforts Jeff Knipe managed to get the date and
Marsden confirmed the spike is really asteroid (84447) 2002 TU240. It
wasn't discovered until 2002. Problem is the trail is atypical on Arp's
image of what you'd expect an asteroid would create. Still, the
position matches and given the weird characteristics of 103 emulsions
this can happen when a moving object is seen over a galaxy. Brian Skiff
suggests reciprocity as the reason. I disagree in a way. With 103a
emulsions I used true reciprocity is a time thing. When first hit by
light the film is "fast" but slows down as further photons hit that part
of the film. Since the asteroid is moving I don't agree that's what's
happening here. I've used 103a emulsions and they have another effect.
They can be sensitized by flashing with light prior to exposure. This
is a very sensitive process. Too much and it fogs the film, too little
and no effect. Getting it right is difficult and temperature sensitive.
I used to use the process so am well aware of it. I think the trail
peters out away from the galaxy because the galaxy itself "flashed" the
film. The trail appears slightly curved but this is due to an illusion
since the trail is stronger on the side with more "flash" from the
galaxy. In any case the literature will need to be changed and a
footnote added to Arp's catalog. Even though I only got the ball
started it was a fascinating experience.

Below is the email I received from Jeff Knipe. Since then I've learned
from him that this will be announced at the January at the AAS meeting.

Dear Rick,

Dennis Webb first brought to my attention your observation of the
curious incident of the galactic spike that did not appear in Arp 192,
and so first off, we greatly thank you. I apologize for not getting back
to you sooner. An answer, however, was not readily forthcoming, as you
will appreciate. It has taken a lot of footwork and image processing,
not a little computation and measuring, and some serious archival
mining-in fact, all the way back to Arp's original observing log. But we
now have an answer as to why this feature appears to have vanished. It
was an asteroid, minor planet (84447) TU 240, in fact. According to
Brian Marsden of the SAO, it was discovered by NEAT from their Haleakala
site on 6 Oct. 2002. It is not an NEO but a main-belt asteroid with a =
2.5 AU, e = 0.02, i = 10 deg. Prediscovery observations of this asteroid
have been noted in 2000 (Catalina and LINEAR), as well as a single ESO
image on 1 Mar. 1992. But, according to the digitized log book of Arp's
Atlas observations (and just locating this took nearly a month) the
Atlas image, taken on 19 Feb. 1964, is the earliest known prediscovery
image. It is astonishing that for forty-five years, this feature was
thought to be part of the structure of this peculiar galaxy. You may be
pleased to know that I sent Chip a note congratulating him on
discovering an asteroid. He was very much interested in this little
mystery, but I think he was hoping for a more exotic outcome.

Many of the astronomers I discussed this with (and there were at least
ten) considered that the spike might be an asteroid, given 192's
position near the ecliptic plane. But others argued that it did not look
like an asteroid track, in that it appears to fade at its greatest
distance from the galaxy, which is more characteristic of a bridge or
tidal tail, and appeared slightly curved. All agreed, however, that,
since the feature no longer exists, it couldn't be something intrinsic
to the galaxy. At that distance (90 Mpc), its length would have to be on
the order of many kpc, and a structure like that wouldn't evaporate
within 45 years' time. Because the spike looked like something other
than an asteroid, some astronomers speculated that it could a flaw in
the emulsion or some sort of artifact. Had it been any of the latter, we
would have had to examine the original plate. Fortunately, we did not
have to do that because the original plates cannot be located. According
to Chip, they should be locked in a steel vault in either the basement
or attic of the Carnegie Observatories' office in Pasadena, but
apparently they are not there! This is another mystery.

Brian Skiff suggests that the fading of the trail is what you might
expect from reciprocity-failure in the emulsion, which makes sense given
that the asteroid was in retrograde, thus its track began over the
galaxy when the emulsion was fresh and "petered out" northwest after 40
minutes when the emulsion grew "tired." Some of the spike's apparent
structure, too, could have come from emulsion effects. The trail is
stronger while it is on top of the galaxy simply because the galaxy (or
the galaxy + asteroid) has bumped up the background and hence the track
has greater density.

The slight curvature is more problematic. Skiff thinks it may be due to
field rotation, something you are, no doubt, very familiar with. If the
guide star is on the edge of the field (the one at the bottom of the Arp
plate is V = 15.09 and would have made a tempting guide star), the
center of the field ends up rotating a bit during a "perfect" exposure.
It could also be due to a slip in the guiding using the slow-motion
buttons on the hand paddle. But I cannot believe Arp would be so
slipshod in his guiding. (After all, Arp learned everything he knew
about long-exposure guiding from none other than Walter Baade!) It is my
belief that the slight curve is an optical illusion caused by the
fizzled out track "blending" with background stars and/or other sources.
If you look closely at the image with a magnifying glass, you can
actually see where the dark track transects the bulbous part of the
galaxy. If you lay a ruler across the whole thing, the track is straight.

Below is the daily ephemeris of where this asteroid would have been at
the time the image was made. It was prepared by Marsden.

(84447) a,e,i = 2.52, 0.02, 10 Elements MPO143061
Date TT R. A. (2000) Decl. Delta r Elong.
Phase V
1964 02 17 10 38.90 +17 46.5 1.499 2.476 169.1 4.3 19.0
1964 02 18 10 38.06 +17 56.2 1.498 2.476 169.8 4.1 19.0
1964 02 19 10 37.22 +18 05.8 1.497 2.477 170.3 3.8 19.0
1964 02 20 10 36.36 +18 15.3 1.496 2.477 170.7 3.7 19.0
1964 02 21 10 35.50 +18 24.8 1.496 2.477 171.0 3.6 19.0

The coordinates given in the Atlas for Arp 192 a 10 35.4 +18 17.
Very close indeed, considering Arp's coordinates are epoch 1970.

There's a lot more I could tell you about this adventure-the frustrating
searches for archival images, the librarian at Caltech who couldn't have
cared less, the many iterations of image processing, and the
back-and-forth discussions I had with Dennis and all the astronomers,
but that would make for a long email indeed. You may congratulate
yourself on noting that something was (literally) amiss and thus
contributing to galactic literature. Thanks to your keen observation,
all the catalogs will now have to be updated! I have proposed presenting
a poster paper on this at the upcoming American Astronomical Society
meeting in D.C., and Brian and I have also discussed writing a joint
paper for either The Observatory or the Journal of Astronomical History
and Heritage, but all this remains to be seen. If nothing else,
resolving this mystery was enough fun for me!

If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to contact me or
Dennis.

Sincere regards,

Jeff Kanipe
http://www.cosmicconnectionbook.com/index.php
http://www.willbell.com/HANDBOOK/arp.htm




The galaxy pair appears to be about 300 million light-years away. Both
galaxies are classed by NED as Sb which seems a bit surprising as well.

There are two fuzzy patches east and a bit below Arp 192. I see the
first barely showing in the SDSS image, the bigger and brighter one
further east is out of that frame. If not for the SDSS image I'd have
thought these some sort of reflection. I get them occasionally but they
look somewhat different than these. I still don't know if they are real
or not but suspect they are. I can't find any identity for them
however. Are they tidal pieces from Arp 192, separate galaxies of some
sort or galactic cirrus? I just don't know. They are in no catalog I
can find.

There is a galaxy cluster of about 15' diameter in the image, ZwCl
1034.8+1820. It is centered about 1 minute NE of the brightest star SE
of Arp 192. Few galaxies are there but there's one clump to the NE of
this position and another below it running off the bottom of the image.
A scattering of galaxies connects the two regions. This may be the
cluster. It is listed as having 103 members but no distance.

The very blue galaxy just north of the star is CGCG 094-098 at 300
million light-years. Even though this area has been covered by the SDSS
nothing else in the image has a distance estimate.

It's quite ironic (though not unexpected) that my image shows two
asteroids both with about the same inclination as Arp's "spike". This
is because Arp 192 lies well within the asteroid belt's position in the
sky. The bright one is (11031) 1988 RC5 at magnitude 18.1. The dim one
above and slightly right of it is (114750) 2003 HP40 at magnitude 19.2
That's a bit dimmer than the predicted magnitude of Arp's misidentified
asteroid.

Prior to his catalog Arp was a "normal" astronomer who followed the main
path that red shift was a distance measurement, newly discovered QSOs
were distant objects, the big bang happened etc. But after the catalog
he changed. It appears the change was due to his idea that some
peculiar galaxies, those in the middle of his catalog, were likely
ejecting material including QSOs. He slowly changed to what most would
likely call a "crackpot" astronomer throwing out virtually all his basic
beliefs and replacing them with his rather unorthodox views. I can't
help but wonder how much this particular "spike" might have played in
this "conversion." Would his change of course even happened if he knew
this was an asteroid? How would his future have been changed if he'd
just taken a second image to confirm it? Maybe not at all. But I can't
help wondering.

SDSS http://cosmo.nyu.edu/hogg/rc3/NGC_33..._irg_clean.jpg
Arp's image with the false "spike":
http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level...ig_arp192.jpeg

14" LX200R @ F/10, L=8x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

I've attached two images, one alternating between Arp's any my image as
well as my full image

Rick

In article , Rick
Johnson wrote:

Very very cool Rick.

Congratulation on your un-discovery of the Spike and discovery of an
asteroid. 45 years later

Thanks so much for sharing this with us..

Milton Aupperle
http://www.outcastsoft.com/AstroImages/AstroIndex.html

Rick Johnson wrote:
SNIP

14" LX200R @ F/10, L=8x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

I've attached two images, one alternating between Arp's any my image as
well as my full image

Rick

Great story! I can't believe that no one ever tried using that spike in
a paper with follow up spectra or other imaging. Such an apperantly
strange feature should have piqued a dozen grad-students' attention over
the years (you would think).

Very nice image too, btw, what's the deal with the three hot-pink
galaxies on the far left? I don't see anything else in the whole image
that has that color.

--
Adriano
http://www.edmar-co.com/adriano/

34°14'11.7"N

Adriano wrote:
Rick Johnson wrote:
SNIP

14" LX200R @ F/10, L=8x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

I've attached two images, one alternating between Arp's any my image
as well as my full image

Rick

Great story! I can't believe that no one ever tried using that spike in
a paper with follow up spectra or other imaging. Such an apperantly
strange feature should have piqued a dozen grad-students' attention over
the years (you would think).

Very nice image too, btw, what's the deal with the three hot-pink
galaxies on the far left? I don't see anything else in the whole image
that has that color.


I couldn't believe no one hadn't noticed long before this. In fact that
was the reaction of all astronomers that were involved in the "Great
Spike Hunt". Seems while it made for a very odd and often seen image it
sparked little interest in studying it except to reanalyze Arp's single
photo. Which has strangely gone missing much to Arp's dismay. If the
asteroid idea (our best guess) didn't pan out or we couldn't find the
date and time of the image (oddly not considered important in those
days) we were down to plate examination so finding that missing was a
big disappointment. Also finding the librarian not caring and
uncooperative that part of the collection was missing was weird as well.

I see a few really orange galaxies but none look hot pink on my monitor.
The entire field seems to have little on it even Sloan didn't give it
the coverage it usually does or else NED hasn't picked it up as yet. I
didn't check Sloan's database as NED is easier for me to use.

Now if I can just get someone as interested in the video you made of the
apparently moving HH objects I found...

Rick

"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
. com...


Well done!

Kev

Here's a crop from your image. It's the triangle of small galaxies in
the center. Looking at the channels shows that they are very dim on the
green (which would make them magenta). It's not the case on the SDSS
image I also attached. They just really stood out as very pink on my
monitor which was strange. Everything else looks normal.

Rick Johnson wrote:

I see a few really orange galaxies but none look hot pink on my monitor.
The entire field seems to have little on it even Sloan didn't give it
the coverage it usually does or else NED hasn't picked it up as yet. I
didn't check Sloan's database as NED is easier for me to use.

Now if I can just get someone as interested in the video you made of the
apparently moving HH objects I found...

Rick

You'll need to shoot more HH's and blink 'em with the DSSI & II and
build a case for study. Are high angular motions common in HH objects?
Too bad I'm not a real scientist ;-)

--
Adriano
http://www.edmar-co.com/adriano/

34°14'11.7"N

Good job rick. For noticing, what isn't noticed....


"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
. com...
It's not often an amateur observatory gets to correct the astronomical
literature but it appears my little project of imaging in color the Arp
galaxies I can reach from my latitude apparently got the ball rolling to
do just that. Early astronomers only had their eyes and thus were often
fooled. Many NGC objects are just stars for instance, Mars canals don't
exist nor does Vulcan. Photography helped eliminate the errors but if
you don't take a second image they can lead you astray as well. This
happened to Arp with his 192nd entry. Time on the 200" was difficult to
come by and his project ate up a lot of it. It appears he rarely if
ever, was able to take two images of his objects. But many other images
of Arp 192 have been taken since yet no one seems to have noticed the
main feature of the galaxy pair doesn't exist! Well it does but not as
Arp and others using his image thought. This will be a long post as the
story is rather long. I'll start with the basics as Arp and others saw
them.

ARP 192 NGC 3303, two interacting galaxies with a huge tidal spray.
Arp classed it in his category, Galaxies (not classifiable as S or E):
Narrow filaments. Indeed his often reproduced image shows a great jet
or spike that probably caused it to be put in this classification. Also
notes at NED say things like: "Very peculiar spiral with a compact
companion and a spike. Very faint outer extension." and "Main body 0.5 x
0.4 with stellar companion superimposed, loop + sharp jet, enormous
irregular plumes." Arp said; "Diffuse faint arms off both sides, spike
comes from stellar companion."

There things stood for 46 years until I imaged it and had a "What the
#&*@" reaction looking at my image and comparing it to Arp's. Others,
including Sloan had imaged it but somehow overlooked the obvious.

The famous spike doesn't exist! Over all these years and references to
the spike no one seems to have noticed! I was sure my image would have
shown it if it did exist. I find imagers saying that it apparently is
below their resolution ability. But the SDSS image is of sufficient
resolution and it doesn't show it yet no one noticed that I can find.
Still my image goes as deep and does have about the resolution of Arp's
image yet there's not even the slightest hint of the jet. Galaxy sized
events don't vanish this quickly.

I put out a few feelers but nothing came of them. Finally I blindly
emailed one of the contributors to the Jeff Knipe and Dennis Webb book
on the catalog who contacted the authors. The best suggestion we could
come up with was that it was an asteroid but to confirm that we needed
to know the exact date and time of Arp's image. Then it would take a
special request of Brian Marsden of the Minor Planet Center to run known
asteroids for that date. This wasn't an easy task. But despite a Cal
Tech librarian's best efforts Jeff Knipe managed to get the date and
Marsden confirmed the spike is really asteroid (84447) 2002 TU240. It
wasn't discovered until 2002. Problem is the trail is atypical on Arp's
image of what you'd expect an asteroid would create. Still, the
position matches and given the weird characteristics of 103 emulsions
this can happen when a moving object is seen over a galaxy. Brian Skiff
suggests reciprocity as the reason. I disagree in a way. With 103a
emulsions I used true reciprocity is a time thing. When first hit by
light the film is "fast" but slows down as further photons hit that part
of the film. Since the asteroid is moving I don't agree that's what's
happening here. I've used 103a emulsions and they have another effect.
They can be sensitized by flashing with light prior to exposure. This
is a very sensitive process. Too much and it fogs the film, too little
and no effect. Getting it right is difficult and temperature sensitive.
I used to use the process so am well aware of it. I think the trail
peters out away from the galaxy because the galaxy itself "flashed" the
film. The trail appears slightly curved but this is due to an illusion
since the trail is stronger on the side with more "flash" from the
galaxy. In any case the literature will need to be changed and a
footnote added to Arp's catalog. Even though I only got the ball
started it was a fascinating experience.

Below is the email I received from Jeff Knipe. Since then I've learned
from him that this will be announced at the January at the AAS meeting.

Dear Rick,

Dennis Webb first brought to my attention your observation of the
curious incident of the galactic spike that did not appear in Arp 192,
and so first off, we greatly thank you. I apologize for not getting back
to you sooner. An answer, however, was not readily forthcoming, as you
will appreciate. It has taken a lot of footwork and image processing,
not a little computation and measuring, and some serious archival
mining-in fact, all the way back to Arp's original observing log. But we
now have an answer as to why this feature appears to have vanished. It
was an asteroid, minor planet (84447) TU 240, in fact. According to
Brian Marsden of the SAO, it was discovered by NEAT from their Haleakala
site on 6 Oct. 2002. It is not an NEO but a main-belt asteroid with a =
2.5 AU, e = 0.02, i = 10 deg. Prediscovery observations of this asteroid
have been noted in 2000 (Catalina and LINEAR), as well as a single ESO
image on 1 Mar. 1992. But, according to the digitized log book of Arp's
Atlas observations (and just locating this took nearly a month) the
Atlas image, taken on 19 Feb. 1964, is the earliest known prediscovery
image. It is astonishing that for forty-five years, this feature was
thought to be part of the structure of this peculiar galaxy. You may be
pleased to know that I sent Chip a note congratulating him on
discovering an asteroid. He was very much interested in this little
mystery, but I think he was hoping for a more exotic outcome.

Many of the astronomers I discussed this with (and there were at least
ten) considered that the spike might be an asteroid, given 192's
position near the ecliptic plane. But others argued that it did not look
like an asteroid track, in that it appears to fade at its greatest
distance from the galaxy, which is more characteristic of a bridge or
tidal tail, and appeared slightly curved. All agreed, however, that,
since the feature no longer exists, it couldn't be something intrinsic
to the galaxy. At that distance (90 Mpc), its length would have to be on
the order of many kpc, and a structure like that wouldn't evaporate
within 45 years' time. Because the spike looked like something other
than an asteroid, some astronomers speculated that it could a flaw in
the emulsion or some sort of artifact. Had it been any of the latter, we
would have had to examine the original plate. Fortunately, we did not
have to do that because the original plates cannot be located. According
to Chip, they should be locked in a steel vault in either the basement
or attic of the Carnegie Observatories' office in Pasadena, but
apparently they are not there! This is another mystery.

Brian Skiff suggests that the fading of the trail is what you might
expect from reciprocity-failure in the emulsion, which makes sense given
that the asteroid was in retrograde, thus its track began over the
galaxy when the emulsion was fresh and "petered out" northwest after 40
minutes when the emulsion grew "tired." Some of the spike's apparent
structure, too, could have come from emulsion effects. The trail is
stronger while it is on top of the galaxy simply because the galaxy (or
the galaxy + asteroid) has bumped up the background and hence the track
has greater density.

The slight curvature is more problematic. Skiff thinks it may be due to
field rotation, something you are, no doubt, very familiar with. If the
guide star is on the edge of the field (the one at the bottom of the Arp
plate is V = 15.09 and would have made a tempting guide star), the
center of the field ends up rotating a bit during a "perfect" exposure.
It could also be due to a slip in the guiding using the slow-motion
buttons on the hand paddle. But I cannot believe Arp would be so
slipshod in his guiding. (After all, Arp learned everything he knew
about long-exposure guiding from none other than Walter Baade!) It is my
belief that the slight curve is an optical illusion caused by the
fizzled out track "blending" with background stars and/or other sources.
If you look closely at the image with a magnifying glass, you can
actually see where the dark track transects the bulbous part of the
galaxy. If you lay a ruler across the whole thing, the track is straight.

Below is the daily ephemeris of where this asteroid would have been at
the time the image was made. It was prepared by Marsden.

(84447) a,e,i = 2.52, 0.02, 10 Elements
MPO143061
Date TT R. A. (2000) Decl. Delta r Elong.
Phase V
1964 02 17 10 38.90 +17 46.5 1.499 2.476 169.1 4.3
19.0
1964 02 18 10 38.06 +17 56.2 1.498 2.476 169.8 4.1
19.0
1964 02 19 10 37.22 +18 05.8 1.497 2.477 170.3 3.8
19.0
1964 02 20 10 36.36 +18 15.3 1.496 2.477 170.7 3.7
19.0
1964 02 21 10 35.50 +18 24.8 1.496 2.477 171.0 3.6
19.0

The coordinates given in the Atlas for Arp 192 a 10 35.4 +18 17.
Very close indeed, considering Arp's coordinates are epoch 1970.

There's a lot more I could tell you about this adventure-the frustrating
searches for archival images, the librarian at Caltech who couldn't have
cared less, the many iterations of image processing, and the
back-and-forth discussions I had with Dennis and all the astronomers,
but that would make for a long email indeed. You may congratulate
yourself on noting that something was (literally) amiss and thus
contributing to galactic literature. Thanks to your keen observation,
all the catalogs will now have to be updated! I have proposed presenting
a poster paper on this at the upcoming American Astronomical Society
meeting in D.C., and Brian and I have also discussed writing a joint
paper for either The Observatory or the Journal of Astronomical History
and Heritage, but all this remains to be seen. If nothing else,
resolving this mystery was enough fun for me!

If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to contact me or
Dennis.

Sincere regards,

Jeff Kanipe
http://www.cosmicconnectionbook.com/index.php
http://www.willbell.com/HANDBOOK/arp.htm




The galaxy pair appears to be about 300 million light-years away. Both
galaxies are classed by NED as Sb which seems a bit surprising as well.

There are two fuzzy patches east and a bit below Arp 192. I see the
first barely showing in the SDSS image, the bigger and brighter one
further east is out of that frame. If not for the SDSS image I'd have
thought these some sort of reflection. I get them occasionally but they
look somewhat different than these. I still don't know if they are real
or not but suspect they are. I can't find any identity for them
however. Are they tidal pieces from Arp 192, separate galaxies of some
sort or galactic cirrus? I just don't know. They are in no catalog I
can find.

There is a galaxy cluster of about 15' diameter in the image, ZwCl
1034.8+1820. It is centered about 1 minute NE of the brightest star SE
of Arp 192. Few galaxies are there but there's one clump to the NE of
this position and another below it running off the bottom of the image.
A scattering of galaxies connects the two regions. This may be the
cluster. It is listed as having 103 members but no distance.

The very blue galaxy just north of the star is CGCG 094-098 at 300
million light-years. Even though this area has been covered by the SDSS
nothing else in the image has a distance estimate.

It's quite ironic (though not unexpected) that my image shows two
asteroids both with about the same inclination as Arp's "spike". This
is because Arp 192 lies well within the asteroid belt's position in the
sky. The bright one is (11031) 1988 RC5 at magnitude 18.1. The dim one
above and slightly right of it is (114750) 2003 HP40 at magnitude 19.2
That's a bit dimmer than the predicted magnitude of Arp's misidentified
asteroid.

Prior to his catalog Arp was a "normal" astronomer who followed the main
path that red shift was a distance measurement, newly discovered QSOs
were distant objects, the big bang happened etc. But after the catalog
he changed. It appears the change was due to his idea that some
peculiar galaxies, those in the middle of his catalog, were likely
ejecting material including QSOs. He slowly changed to what most would
likely call a "crackpot" astronomer throwing out virtually all his basic
beliefs and replacing them with his rather unorthodox views. I can't
help but wonder how much this particular "spike" might have played in
this "conversion." Would his change of course even happened if he knew
this was an asteroid? How would his future have been changed if he'd
just taken a second image to confirm it? Maybe not at all. But I can't
help wondering.

SDSS http://cosmo.nyu.edu/hogg/rc3/NGC_33..._irg_clean.jpg
Arp's image with the false "spike":
http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level...ig_arp192.jpeg

14" LX200R @ F/10, L=8x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

I've attached two images, one alternating between Arp's any my image as
well as my full image

Rick

G wrote:
Good job rick. For noticing, what isn't noticed....


Or you could say I discovered an asteroid decades before it was
discovered by not photographing it when I didn't intend to photograph it.

My head hurts.

Rick

Great image and a good read too. I enjoyed it very much.

Stefan

"Rick Johnson" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
. com...
It's not often an amateur observatory gets to correct the astronomical
literature but it appears my little project of imaging in color the Arp
galaxies I can reach from my latitude apparently got the ball rolling to
do just that. Early astronomers only had their eyes and thus were often
fooled. Many NGC objects are just stars for instance, Mars canals don't
exist nor does Vulcan. Photography helped eliminate the errors but if
you don't take a second image they can lead you astray as well. This
happened to Arp with his 192nd entry. Time on the 200" was difficult to
come by and his project ate up a lot of it. It appears he rarely if
ever, was able to take two images of his objects. But many other images
of Arp 192 have been taken since yet no one seems to have noticed the
main feature of the galaxy pair doesn't exist! Well it does but not as
Arp and others using his image thought. This will be a long post as the
story is rather long. I'll start with the basics as Arp and others saw
them.

ARP 192 NGC 3303, two interacting galaxies with a huge tidal spray.
Arp classed it in his category, Galaxies (not classifiable as S or E):
Narrow filaments. Indeed his often reproduced image shows a great jet
or spike that probably caused it to be put in this classification. Also
notes at NED say things like: "Very peculiar spiral with a compact
companion and a spike. Very faint outer extension." and "Main body 0.5 x
0.4 with stellar companion superimposed, loop + sharp jet, enormous
irregular plumes." Arp said; "Diffuse faint arms off both sides, spike
comes from stellar companion."

There things stood for 46 years until I imaged it and had a "What the
#&*@" reaction looking at my image and comparing it to Arp's. Others,
including Sloan had imaged it but somehow overlooked the obvious.

The famous spike doesn't exist! Over all these years and references to
the spike no one seems to have noticed! I was sure my image would have
shown it if it did exist. I find imagers saying that it apparently is
below their resolution ability. But the SDSS image is of sufficient
resolution and it doesn't show it yet no one noticed that I can find.
Still my image goes as deep and does have about the resolution of Arp's
image yet there's not even the slightest hint of the jet. Galaxy sized
events don't vanish this quickly.

I put out a few feelers but nothing came of them. Finally I blindly
emailed one of the contributors to the Jeff Knipe and Dennis Webb book
on the catalog who contacted the authors. The best suggestion we could
come up with was that it was an asteroid but to confirm that we needed
to know the exact date and time of Arp's image. Then it would take a
special request of Brian Marsden of the Minor Planet Center to run known
asteroids for that date. This wasn't an easy task. But despite a Cal
Tech librarian's best efforts Jeff Knipe managed to get the date and
Marsden confirmed the spike is really asteroid (84447) 2002 TU240. It
wasn't discovered until 2002. Problem is the trail is atypical on Arp's
image of what you'd expect an asteroid would create. Still, the
position matches and given the weird characteristics of 103 emulsions
this can happen when a moving object is seen over a galaxy. Brian Skiff
suggests reciprocity as the reason. I disagree in a way. With 103a
emulsions I used true reciprocity is a time thing. When first hit by
light the film is "fast" but slows down as further photons hit that part
of the film. Since the asteroid is moving I don't agree that's what's
happening here. I've used 103a emulsions and they have another effect.
They can be sensitized by flashing with light prior to exposure. This
is a very sensitive process. Too much and it fogs the film, too little
and no effect. Getting it right is difficult and temperature sensitive.
I used to use the process so am well aware of it. I think the trail
peters out away from the galaxy because the galaxy itself "flashed" the
film. The trail appears slightly curved but this is due to an illusion
since the trail is stronger on the side with more "flash" from the
galaxy. In any case the literature will need to be changed and a
footnote added to Arp's catalog. Even though I only got the ball
started it was a fascinating experience.

Below is the email I received from Jeff Knipe. Since then I've learned
from him that this will be announced at the January at the AAS meeting.

Dear Rick,

Dennis Webb first brought to my attention your observation of the
curious incident of the galactic spike that did not appear in Arp 192,
and so first off, we greatly thank you. I apologize for not getting back
to you sooner. An answer, however, was not readily forthcoming, as you
will appreciate. It has taken a lot of footwork and image processing,
not a little computation and measuring, and some serious archival
mining-in fact, all the way back to Arp's original observing log. But we
now have an answer as to why this feature appears to have vanished. It
was an asteroid, minor planet (84447) TU 240, in fact. According to
Brian Marsden of the SAO, it was discovered by NEAT from their Haleakala
site on 6 Oct. 2002. It is not an NEO but a main-belt asteroid with a =
2.5 AU, e = 0.02, i = 10 deg. Prediscovery observations of this asteroid
have been noted in 2000 (Catalina and LINEAR), as well as a single ESO
image on 1 Mar. 1992. But, according to the digitized log book of Arp's
Atlas observations (and just locating this took nearly a month) the
Atlas image, taken on 19 Feb. 1964, is the earliest known prediscovery
image. It is astonishing that for forty-five years, this feature was
thought to be part of the structure of this peculiar galaxy. You may be
pleased to know that I sent Chip a note congratulating him on
discovering an asteroid. He was very much interested in this little
mystery, but I think he was hoping for a more exotic outcome.

Many of the astronomers I discussed this with (and there were at least
ten) considered that the spike might be an asteroid, given 192's
position near the ecliptic plane. But others argued that it did not look
like an asteroid track, in that it appears to fade at its greatest
distance from the galaxy, which is more characteristic of a bridge or
tidal tail, and appeared slightly curved. All agreed, however, that,
since the feature no longer exists, it couldn't be something intrinsic
to the galaxy. At that distance (90 Mpc), its length would have to be on
the order of many kpc, and a structure like that wouldn't evaporate
within 45 years' time. Because the spike looked like something other
than an asteroid, some astronomers speculated that it could a flaw in
the emulsion or some sort of artifact. Had it been any of the latter, we
would have had to examine the original plate. Fortunately, we did not
have to do that because the original plates cannot be located. According
to Chip, they should be locked in a steel vault in either the basement
or attic of the Carnegie Observatories' office in Pasadena, but
apparently they are not there! This is another mystery.

Brian Skiff suggests that the fading of the trail is what you might
expect from reciprocity-failure in the emulsion, which makes sense given
that the asteroid was in retrograde, thus its track began over the
galaxy when the emulsion was fresh and "petered out" northwest after 40
minutes when the emulsion grew "tired." Some of the spike's apparent
structure, too, could have come from emulsion effects. The trail is
stronger while it is on top of the galaxy simply because the galaxy (or
the galaxy + asteroid) has bumped up the background and hence the track
has greater density.

The slight curvature is more problematic. Skiff thinks it may be due to
field rotation, something you are, no doubt, very familiar with. If the
guide star is on the edge of the field (the one at the bottom of the Arp
plate is V = 15.09 and would have made a tempting guide star), the
center of the field ends up rotating a bit during a "perfect" exposure.
It could also be due to a slip in the guiding using the slow-motion
buttons on the hand paddle. But I cannot believe Arp would be so
slipshod in his guiding. (After all, Arp learned everything he knew
about long-exposure guiding from none other than Walter Baade!) It is my
belief that the slight curve is an optical illusion caused by the
fizzled out track "blending" with background stars and/or other sources.
If you look closely at the image with a magnifying glass, you can
actually see where the dark track transects the bulbous part of the
galaxy. If you lay a ruler across the whole thing, the track is straight.

Below is the daily ephemeris of where this asteroid would have been at
the time the image was made. It was prepared by Marsden.

(84447) a,e,i = 2.52, 0.02, 10 Elements
MPO143061
Date TT R. A. (2000) Decl. Delta r Elong.
Phase V
1964 02 17 10 38.90 +17 46.5 1.499 2.476 169.1 4.3
19.0
1964 02 18 10 38.06 +17 56.2 1.498 2.476 169.8 4.1
19.0
1964 02 19 10 37.22 +18 05.8 1.497 2.477 170.3 3.8
19.0
1964 02 20 10 36.36 +18 15.3 1.496 2.477 170.7 3.7
19.0
1964 02 21 10 35.50 +18 24.8 1.496 2.477 171.0 3.6
19.0

The coordinates given in the Atlas for Arp 192 a 10 35.4 +18 17.
Very close indeed, considering Arp's coordinates are epoch 1970.

There's a lot more I could tell you about this adventure-the frustrating
searches for archival images, the librarian at Caltech who couldn't have
cared less, the many iterations of image processing, and the
back-and-forth discussions I had with Dennis and all the astronomers,
but that would make for a long email indeed. You may congratulate
yourself on noting that something was (literally) amiss and thus
contributing to galactic literature. Thanks to your keen observation,
all the catalogs will now have to be updated! I have proposed presenting
a poster paper on this at the upcoming American Astronomical Society
meeting in D.C., and Brian and I have also discussed writing a joint
paper for either The Observatory or the Journal of Astronomical History
and Heritage, but all this remains to be seen. If nothing else,
resolving this mystery was enough fun for me!

If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to contact me or
Dennis.

Sincere regards,

Jeff Kanipe
http://www.cosmicconnectionbook.com/index.php
http://www.willbell.com/HANDBOOK/arp.htm




The galaxy pair appears to be about 300 million light-years away. Both
galaxies are classed by NED as Sb which seems a bit surprising as well.

There are two fuzzy patches east and a bit below Arp 192. I see the
first barely showing in the SDSS image, the bigger and brighter one
further east is out of that frame. If not for the SDSS image I'd have
thought these some sort of reflection. I get them occasionally but they
look somewhat different than these. I still don't know if they are real
or not but suspect they are. I can't find any identity for them
however. Are they tidal pieces from Arp 192, separate galaxies of some
sort or galactic cirrus? I just don't know. They are in no catalog I
can find.

There is a galaxy cluster of about 15' diameter in the image, ZwCl
1034.8+1820. It is centered about 1 minute NE of the brightest star SE
of Arp 192. Few galaxies are there but there's one clump to the NE of
this position and another below it running off the bottom of the image.
A scattering of galaxies connects the two regions. This may be the
cluster. It is listed as having 103 members but no distance.

The very blue galaxy just north of the star is CGCG 094-098 at 300
million light-years. Even though this area has been covered by the SDSS
nothing else in the image has a distance estimate.

It's quite ironic (though not unexpected) that my image shows two
asteroids both with about the same inclination as Arp's "spike". This
is because Arp 192 lies well within the asteroid belt's position in the
sky. The bright one is (11031) 1988 RC5 at magnitude 18.1. The dim one
above and slightly right of it is (114750) 2003 HP40 at magnitude 19.2
That's a bit dimmer than the predicted magnitude of Arp's misidentified
asteroid.

Prior to his catalog Arp was a "normal" astronomer who followed the main
path that red shift was a distance measurement, newly discovered QSOs
were distant objects, the big bang happened etc. But after the catalog
he changed. It appears the change was due to his idea that some
peculiar galaxies, those in the middle of his catalog, were likely
ejecting material including QSOs. He slowly changed to what most would
likely call a "crackpot" astronomer throwing out virtually all his basic
beliefs and replacing them with his rather unorthodox views. I can't
help but wonder how much this particular "spike" might have played in
this "conversion." Would his change of course even happened if he knew
this was an asteroid? How would his future have been changed if he'd
just taken a second image to confirm it? Maybe not at all. But I can't
help wondering.

SDSS http://cosmo.nyu.edu/hogg/rc3/NGC_33..._irg_clean.jpg
Arp's image with the false "spike":
http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level...ig_arp192.jpeg

14" LX200R @ F/10, L=8x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

I've attached two images, one alternating between Arp's any my image as
well as my full image

Rick