Spiral NGC 5211

NGC 5211 is a rather strange spiral galaxy in Virgo 170 to 180 million light-years distant. It is classified by NED as (R')SAB(rs)ab pec though the NGC project says Sb/SBb apparently undecided if it is a barred spiral or not. Some sources say it is similar to NGC 210 though NED and the NGC project classifies that as SAB(s)b (no ring). So by the NGC project they are similar and by NED they aren't. My image of NGC 210 is at http://www.spacebanter.com/attachmen...tid=3160&stc=1 . To me it is similar in that the outer arms start from the ends of very faint bars extending out from in inner disk.

NGC 5211 was discovered by William Herschel on April 14, 1828 but is not in either of the two Herschel 400 observing programs. It is a rather large galaxy. I get a diameter of about 112,000 light-years assuming the 180 million light-year distant. It has one apparent true companion UGC 8526. It has a slightly larger red-shift putting it at 190 million light-years. Since relative velocities can easily account for this difference it is likely they are closer to the same distance than red-shift indicates. It is a much smaller spiral being only a bit over 41,000 light-years across. NED classifies it simply as S? Other sources call it a blue compact galaxy. It looks like an Sbc to my untrained eye. It is about the same size as M33 but has a much higher surface brightness and star density than M33.

While the field is near the edge of the Virgo Cluster none of that cluster's galaxies are in the image. In fact all are well beyond the cluster. Most that NED has red-shift data on are more than a billion light-years distant with one at almost 6 billion light-years. Thus most are quite faint. The faintest I found red-shift data for was Magnitude 22.9 indicating this night was more transparent than I've had in months. Unfortunately seeing wasn't as great.

To recap some abbreviations used in the annotated image. "p" means it is a photographic red-shift rather than the more accurate spectroscopic red-shift. NLAGN stands for Narrow Line Active Galactic Nucleus indicating it is a close cousin to a quasar. BLAGN is Broad Line Active Galactic Nucleus http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/S...ll/frames.html This link is by an astronomer I worked with for quite a few years. He's also an avid amateur astronomer. ELG means an emission line galaxy where emission lines are obvious in its spectrum http://www.usm.uni-muenchen.de/peopl...tra/node4.html . NELG means narrow emission line galaxy. LINER means Low-Ionization Nuclear Emission-line Region http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/G...say_liner.html .

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

Rick

Rick,

that's remarkably similar to NGC 210 indeed. And I am still amazed that your
NGC 210 is at least as good as the one I got in Namibia.

Stefan


"WA0CKY" schrieb im Newsbeitrag ...


NGC 5211 is a rather strange spiral galaxy in Virgo 170 to 180 million
light-years distant. It is classified by NED as (R')SAB(rs)ab pec
though the NGC project says Sb/SBb apparently undecided if it is a
barred spiral or not. Some sources say it is similar to NGC 210 though
NED and the NGC project classifies that as SAB(s)b (no ring). So by the
NGC project they are similar and by NED they aren't. My image of NGC
210 is at
http://www.spacebanter.com/attachmen...tid=3160&stc=1 . To
me it is similar in that the outer arms start from the ends of very
faint bars extending out from in inner disk.

NGC 5211 was discovered by William Herschel on April 14, 1828 but is not
in either of the two Herschel 400 observing programs. It is a rather
large galaxy. I get a diameter of about 112,000 light-years assuming
the 180 million light-year distant. It has one apparent true companion
UGC 8526. It has a slightly larger red-shift putting it at 190 million
light-years. Since relative velocities can easily account for this
difference it is likely they are closer to the same distance than
red-shift indicates. It is a much smaller spiral being only a bit over
41,000 light-years across. NED classifies it simply as S? Other
sources call it a blue compact galaxy. It looks like an Sbc to my
untrained eye. It is about the same size as M33 but has a much higher
surface brightness and star density than M33.

While the field is near the edge of the Virgo Cluster none of that
cluster's galaxies are in the image. In fact all are well beyond the
cluster. Most that NED has red-shift data on are more than a billion
light-years distant with one at almost 6 billion light-years. Thus most
are quite faint. The faintest I found red-shift data for was Magnitude
22.9 indicating this night was more transparent than I've had in months.
Unfortunately seeing wasn't as great.

To recap some abbreviations used in the annotated image. "p" means it is
a photographic red-shift rather than the more accurate spectroscopic
red-shift. NLAGN stands for Narrow Line Active Galactic Nucleus
indicating it is a close cousin to a quasar. BLAGN is Broad Line Active
Galactic Nucleus
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/S...ll/frames.html This link
is by an astronomer I worked with for quite a few years. He's also an
avid amateur astronomer. ELG means an emission line galaxy where
emission lines are obvious in its spectrum http://tinyurl.com/osjbk9f .
NELG means narrow emission line galaxy. LINER means Low-Ionization
Nuclear Emission-line Region
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/G...say_liner.html .

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

Rick


--
WA0CKY