ASTRO: Strange flat galaxy FGC 0356

FGC 0356/NGC 1110 is a flat galaxy in Eridanus about 50 to 60 million
light-years distant. It's southern declination makes it a difficult
target in winter for me as I get a frozen fog layer above the lake I
have to look through which greatly dims the image along with brightening
the background to near full moon brightness. This limits how deep I can
go. Rare is the night I can do even as well as this image, especially
this winter. Still it doesn't go as deep as I'd like and seeing is much
worse than even my poor normal of late.

NED classifies the galaxy as an SB(s)m galaxy. The NGC project calls it
simply an Irregular galaxy. Usually you have to be a disk galaxy
(spiral) to be in the Flat Galaxy Catalog. The galaxy has three obvious
blue near star-like regions. Two of them carry their own designations
which NED lists as being: "Companion galaxy to or part of NGC 1110."
Both are listed as HII emitters. That to me indicates they are very
active star forming regions in the galaxy rather than separate companions.

To the lower right is NGC 1108. Its redshift puts it much further away
at 410 million light-years. That makes it about 90,000 light-years in
diameter, over twice the size of FGC 0356 which is only about 42 to 50
thousand light-years in size depending on which distance estimate you
use. The NGC project classifies NGC 1108 as a lenticular galaxy while
NED says S0-: pec?. On its western edge is what appears to be an edge
on disk galaxy though could be a small S0. I was surprised to find it
wasn't listed in NED at all. So I can't say if it is related to NGC
1108 or just a distant background galaxy.

The image contains several galaxy clusters. I've noted them using the
Big Cluster Galaxy to identify its location. The cluster's distance is
usually noted by photographic redshift, denoted with a "p" while the
BCG's redshift has been spectroscopically determined. Both are included
with the cluster distance first.

Galaxies identified in NED only with a positional name, usually based on
J2000 coordinates, are listed only as G with the redshift look back time
travel distance computed using NED's 5 year WMAP calculation and noted
in billions of light-years. Quasars are listed as Q with both the
light-travel time distance and the redshift z value used in that
calculation as astronomers feel light-travel time distances are
misleading at such distances. Partly because so many assumptions are
needed for the calculation which only a small change could make a rather
large difference and because relativity and time passage makes things
"interesting" For example (assuming those assumptions are right which
is a big if) the quasar to the lower left of FGC 0346 shown with a light
travel time distance of 10.65 billion years was only 5.7 billion years
from us when the light left it. Since then the expansion of the
universe has increased the distance between us until it took the light
10.65 billion years to reach us even though it was nearly half that
distance from us when the light started heading our way. Due to that
expansion it is estimated the quasar, if it still exists, would be 18
billion light-years from us today! Even without the apparently
increasing expansion rate of the universe light leaving it today can
never reach us as the distance between us will expand faster than light
can travel. And no this doesn't violate Einstein's theory about not
being able to travel faster than light. That says we can't travel
through space faster than the speed of light but doesn't disallow space
itself from expanding faster than this.

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

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

Rick,

this seems to be the warped version of a thin galaxy. And very blue too.
Not bad for -7 degrees.

Stefan


"Rick Johnson" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
om...

FGC 0356/NGC 1110 is a flat galaxy in Eridanus about 50 to 60 million
light-years distant. It's southern declination makes it a difficult
target in winter for me as I get a frozen fog layer above the lake I
have to look through which greatly dims the image along with brightening
the background to near full moon brightness. This limits how deep I can
go. Rare is the night I can do even as well as this image, especially
this winter. Still it doesn't go as deep as I'd like and seeing is much
worse than even my poor normal of late.

NED classifies the galaxy as an SB(s)m galaxy. The NGC project calls it
simply an Irregular galaxy. Usually you have to be a disk galaxy
(spiral) to be in the Flat Galaxy Catalog. The galaxy has three obvious
blue near star-like regions. Two of them carry their own designations
which NED lists as being: "Companion galaxy to or part of NGC 1110."
Both are listed as HII emitters. That to me indicates they are very
active star forming regions in the galaxy rather than separate companions.

To the lower right is NGC 1108. Its redshift puts it much further away
at 410 million light-years. That makes it about 90,000 light-years in
diameter, over twice the size of FGC 0356 which is only about 42 to 50
thousand light-years in size depending on which distance estimate you
use. The NGC project classifies NGC 1108 as a lenticular galaxy while
NED says S0-: pec?. On its western edge is what appears to be an edge
on disk galaxy though could be a small S0. I was surprised to find it
wasn't listed in NED at all. So I can't say if it is related to NGC
1108 or just a distant background galaxy.

The image contains several galaxy clusters. I've noted them using the
Big Cluster Galaxy to identify its location. The cluster's distance is
usually noted by photographic redshift, denoted with a "p" while the
BCG's redshift has been spectroscopically determined. Both are included
with the cluster distance first.

Galaxies identified in NED only with a positional name, usually based on
J2000 coordinates, are listed only as G with the redshift look back time
travel distance computed using NED's 5 year WMAP calculation and noted
in billions of light-years. Quasars are listed as Q with both the
light-travel time distance and the redshift z value used in that
calculation as astronomers feel light-travel time distances are
misleading at such distances. Partly because so many assumptions are
needed for the calculation which only a small change could make a rather
large difference and because relativity and time passage makes things
"interesting" For example (assuming those assumptions are right which
is a big if) the quasar to the lower left of FGC 0346 shown with a light
travel time distance of 10.65 billion years was only 5.7 billion years
from us when the light left it. Since then the expansion of the
universe has increased the distance between us until it took the light
10.65 billion years to reach us even though it was nearly half that
distance from us when the light started heading our way. Due to that
expansion it is estimated the quasar, if it still exists, would be 18
billion light-years from us today! Even without the apparently
increasing expansion rate of the universe light leaving it today can
never reach us as the distance between us will expand faster than light
can travel. And no this doesn't violate Einstein's theory about not
being able to travel faster than light. That says we can't travel
through space faster than the speed of light but doesn't disallow space
itself from expanding faster than this.

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

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