ASTRO: Arp 190

News server was refusing to work so I switched to a different one and
forgot to include ASTRO: Trying again.
Rick
__________________________

Arp classifies this one under "Galaxies (not classifiable as E or S):
Narrow filaments". Odd as the two galaxies involved seem to be obvious
spirals. But it appears Arp thought there were three, one stellar but
he never got spectral data on it to know for sure. More on this below.
It is also cataloged as UGC 2320. UGC 2320 also includes the galaxy
below those with the filament.

Of the upper galaxies the northern blue spiral galaxy has no red shift
data but is presumed to be interacting with the southern red spiral
galaxy. Remember that red spiral is a new classification of galaxies
not recognized before being uncovered by the folks at Galaxy Zoo, many
of which aren't even amateur astronomers, just folks with computers who
like classifying SDSS images. The red spiral has a red shift showing a
distance of about 460 million light years. So what about that odd
"comet" a bit west of the red spiral? Arp says "filament seems to
originate from stellar image; no spectra available". That would mean a
third galaxy, one that is star-like with a huge plume. Or is it just a
star? I can't find any data on it at all, even today. Most list this
as a galaxy pair but some say multiple system as if to say maybe there
are 3. Considering the "stellar object" is rather white and the plume a
slightly reddish color, more like the red spiral I have to think it a
tidal plume from that galaxy and the "stellar object" is just that, a
star in our galaxy. If anyone out there has anything on this mystery
please let me know. In measuring the FWHM of this star/galaxy I get a
reading a bit larger than an average star but smaller than other known
stellar galaxies. I have to believe this is a star and the point spread
function of the object is due to the haze of the plume distorting the
reading. If I assume the plume carries over the object and subtract
that out its reading is that of a star. Still a spectrum would be welcome!

That leaves the red elliptical like galaxy below the pair. Is it part
of Arp 190? Arp did include it in his image and framed it as if it was.
It too is part of UGC 2320 though other catalogs give it its own
designation. It does seem related as its red shift distance is also
about 460 million light years. If you look closely there seems to be a
very faint bridge between it and the spirals to the north. But it isn't
classed by NED as an elliptical galaxy which surprised me. Sure looks
like one in my image. It is actually classed as a "compact object",
whatever that means. The ARK catalog, where it is entry 92 says
"Compact nearly symmetrical red object." The CGCG catalog where it is
is entry CGCG 440-018 also mentions how compact it is. It also looks
compact in Arp's photo. Problem is it looks like a rather typical E2 or
E3 galaxy to me though the core region seems to get brighter faster than
many do. It was the home to the super nova 2003iv back in 2003.

While there are a lot of interesting looking galaxies, including a group
of 4 below Arp 190 near the bottom of my image, few are in any catalog
at NED, Aladin or SIMBAD. In fact, of the 4 only the easternmost has a
magnitude estimate. It is 2MASX J02500130+1243553. The next one to the
west and also the southernmost of the 4 is 2MASX J02495966+1243253 but
there's little other data available. The rather bluer galaxy somewhat
north of the other three is 2MASX J02495556+1244454, again, not much
else is worth mentioning about it that I could find. So what about the
one I left out. Seems I can't even find a catalog designation for it at
NED or SIMBAD though The Sky gives it the extended PGC number 1415084
and a magnitude of 16.5. In fact The Sky 6 has quite a few extended PGC
galaxies not listed in the two databases I mentioned. Super LEDA does
have them but little information other than position and sometimes
magnitude. The Mitchell Anonymous Catalog (MAC) also lists some of the
brighter galaxies in the image but again this is just a listing with no
helpful data to understand relationships or distances.

SDSS hasn't covered this part of the sky unfortunately. So while that
fourth galaxy is the brightest and reddest and likely a member of the
group it isn't in the 2 micron survey. Red doesn't mean it will be
strong in the infra red. That happens when massive star formation is
going on that is hidden behind dust clouds. The IR comes from this dust
heated by the stars it is hiding. That doesn't appear to be happening
in this galaxy. An active galactic nucleus (AGN) can hide behind a huge
dust cloud and also trigger the 2 micron survey to include the galaxy.

So while there appears to be a lot going on in this image I can't find
much useful to relate about all these anonymous galaxies. We are likely
anonymous to the residents of these galaxies as well.

All this reminds me of a T-shirt sold here. It shows a big mosquito
with blood dripping from his mouth. It is saying "So many fishermen, so
little time." Substitute galaxies for fishermen and astronomy grad
students for mosquitoes and it would be even more true: "So many
galaxies, so little time."

I should explain the rather elongated stars. This was taken on a clear
night with 40 mph winds gusting to 60 mph; 65 kph to 100 kph. Two trees
fell on our road that night. But the wind direction was such it wasn't
stressing the rolled off roof, even though that is about 18 feet in the
air but the wind was swirling like crazy in the observatory. I hoped
that the wind wouldn't hurt the image but as it got strong the seeing
got worse. It started about 3" and ended at about 5" Bright stars show
some elongation due to the wind. I really shouldn't have even tried
imaging that night as the observatory ended up full of debris from my
Polaris tree but nothing heavy hit the optics though bark scars
indicated two large branches did hit the tube (well 2" in diameter
weighing about 4 and 6 lb.). I took a couple more images that night I
haven't processed. Don't know when those branches fell. Seeing was
very variable going from great to lousy and back again. It was fair to
lousy for this one. I did take 4 color frames for each color. All were
poor. I chose be best two for each color as including more just made
things worse, not better. I took 6 luminosity frames but had to throw
out two due to the seeing getting very bad. This is another on the
reshoot list.

Arp's image:
http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level...ig_arp190.jpeg

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

Rick



--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

In article . com, Rick
Johnson wrote:

News server was refusing to work so I switched to a different one and
forgot to include ASTRO: Trying again.
Rick

Hi Rick;

That really need a re-shoot under better skies. I'm amazed you got
what you did and what you did get is really great.

Have you tried stretching the image brightness a lot more for the Luma?

If you do, it really looks like the "jet" of material is possibly a
ring structure. The left side is much fainter than the right. I pushed
the jpeg a lot and came up with this image "ARP190_Brighter_MJA.jpg".

There is also a thin linear trail near the north top of that image too,
which looks like an Asteroid track? If so, it's it's got to be a really
faint one.

I can't wait to see what you come up with under better skies and maybe
a little deeper exposure too.

Thanks for sharing..

Milton Aupperle

Milton Aupperle wrote:
In article . com, Rick
Johnson wrote:

News server was refusing to work so I switched to a different one and
forgot to include ASTRO: Trying again.
Rick

Hi Rick;

That really need a re-shoot under better skies. I'm amazed you got
what you did and what you did get is really great.

Have you tried stretching the image brightness a lot more for the Luma?

If you do, it really looks like the "jet" of material is possibly a
ring structure. The left side is much fainter than the right. I pushed
the jpeg a lot and came up with this image "ARP190_Brighter_MJA.jpg".

There is also a thin linear trail near the north top of that image too,
which looks like an Asteroid track? If so, it's it's got to be a really
faint one.

I can't wait to see what you come up with under better skies and maybe
a little deeper exposure too.

Thanks for sharing..

Milton Aupperle
Due to the varying clouds the background on this one was very splotchy.
I did a lot of work to even out the splotches. What you are picking
up as detail is most likely remains of those splotches. I stretched as
far as I could and be sure the data was real. Stretching further means
introducing a lot of false signal with no way to tell what is real or
not. Only a reshoot with 4 times the exposure time on a good night will
allow a valid deeper stretch and is on the list once this lousy foggy
weather leaves. Right now I have the same conditions as when I took it.
I started a reshoot two nights ago but in the middle of the first
frame the cloud sensor alarm went off and I had to get up and shut down
the observatory. Found the object previous to it (new one) was also so
lost in fog to be useless as well, just not enough to set off the cloud
sensor which is rather insensitive to low level fog, does well with
higher clouds that could condense rain but can miss low level fog unless
it is so thick it sets of the wetness detector.

On the pseudo asteroid I don't know what that is, I missed seeing it in
processing. But it isn't an asteroid, that's certain. Going back and
looking at the original luminosity images it appears on only one and
then to its full extent though due to averaging the four frames I used
it is actually shorter and a lot fainter than it is on that one image.
Looks like a cosmic ray hit that went nearly parallel with the chip. I
need to process it out. If I'd have been able to use the other 2 frames
I'd have used a sigma reject routine to remove such things but with only
4 to work with the average combine was less noisy so went with it.

I always stretch an image as far as I can and be sure the detail I'm
bringing out is real, not noise. My monitor does show extremely good
black detail so I can make a graduated scale with a jump of 2 running
from 0 to 255, 0 for first step, 2 for second etc. and easily see every
one. My old monitor did well to show a 12 step change in the very dark
and very light part though would do about 4 to 6 across most of the
range. This likely causes me to set the black level lower than older
monitors like but since new monitors seem to be headed this way I'm now
processing with that trend in mind and setting the low point of my
images about 8 instead of 15 as I used to. 15 costs noticeable loss of
faint contrast compared to 8 so shoot for that now. For some that will
mean brightening the image some to see the fainter stuff I already see.

Thanks for pointing out the pseudo asteroid, I'd missed it and it could
have been a real but unknown asteroid. Though now many month's later it
would be long lost again. I've now found 3 unknown asteroids on my
images, two months after the image was taken so hopeless to recover.
The third I did notice that night and was gung-ho for followup. Cloudy
for 4 nights. When clear I couldn't find it again. Trail was just too
short for good prediction and my FOV just too narrow for a hunt. I
still rarely check until months later. Need to change that.

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

In article . com, Rick
Johnson wrote:

----Snipped ------ MJA

I really look forward to you going after that one again. My C8 @ 1150
mm FL and on the HEQ5 mount won't make a "dent" as far as picking up
those tiny miniscule faint fuzzies goes.

On the pseudo asteroid I don't know what that is, I missed seeing it in
processing. But it isn't an asteroid, that's certain. Going back and
looking at the original luminosity images it appears on only one and
then to its full extent though due to averaging the four frames I used
it is actually shorter and a lot fainter than it is on that one image.
Looks like a cosmic ray hit that went nearly parallel with the chip. I
need to process it out. If I'd have been able to use the other 2 frames
I'd have used a sigma reject routine to remove such things but with only
4 to work with the average combine was less noisy so went with it.

It's possible a low angle cosmic ray hit then. I had a similar impact
like that a few weeks back. In my case it was 8 pixel long 1 pixels
wide streak on one of 10 frames.

TTYL..

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