ASTRO: NGC 5701

NGC 5701 is a quasi ringed barred spiral about 80 million light-years
distant in Virgo. The arms are very faint. They are quite odd in that
the inner half of each arm that forms the ring is red while the center
to outer half is blue. I've never seen arms so segregated as to star
color (temperature) before. Hot blue stars to the outside of western
arm and middle of eastern and in clusters while the red streams are
smooth and composed of old, cool, red stars.

The field around it has several very distant galaxies with red shift
data from the WIG catalog (WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey). The one just
northeast of NGC 5701 near a bright somewhat orange star at 5.6 billion
light-years is listed at magnitude 22.8 if you are wondering how faint
this image goes. Slightly brighter at magnitude 22.6 is the most
distant galaxy I've picked up at 7.0 (6.962 to be exact beyond reason)
billion light-years. To the southeast of NGC 5701 is another that also
rounds to 7.0 (6.957) which is a bit brighter. All are listed as
emission line galaxies.

I'm reporting this as I researched it. I was really excited about 7
billion light-year galaxies in my image. That's the range of quasars.
Turns out I excite easily as no sooner was that sinking in than
continuing down the list of WIG galaxies I came upon WIG
S15J143912038+05164280 with a z=1.059240. That blew me away. At
magnitude 23.4 I didn't expect it to make it through the JPG process but
there it was! That, by NED's 5 year WMAP calculations puts it 8.023
light years distant! Yikes. Since this WIG survey is very limited in
scope it appears likely that many of the very faint "stars" in my images
are unrecognized very distant galaxies. This is the first field covered
by WIG I've imaged. There may be more in the more than a year's worth
of unprocessed images. I just don't know. This one too is an emission
line galaxy meaning it likely has an AGN at its core making it brighter
than typical for a galaxy.

It turned out there were many dozen galaxies in the image at or beyond 6
billion light-years that were listed only in the WIG survey. As with
the above galaxies all were very dim and barely able to survive the JPG
compression process. So after noting many WIG galaxies within about 5
minutes of NGC 5701 I got more choosy and only picked up those bright
enough to certainly survive the JPG compression though you will likely
have to enlarge the image to see some of them. Dozens are in the raw
FITS file that just won't survive and were therefore not marked.

There are 3 quasars and one asteroid in the image. The asteroid is
(7530) Mizusawa at an estimated magnitude of 16.5. The naming citation
is rather long.

"(7530) Mizusawa = 1994 GO1
Named in commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of the
International Latitude Observatory of Mizusawa, established by the
Japanese government according to a resolution adopted by the
International Association of Geodesy in 1899 as one of the six stations
of the International Latitude Service, at a latitude of +39°08'. In
1988 the Observatory was transferred to the Division of Earth Rotation
of the National Astronomical Observatory. The observations have never
been interrupted, even during the two World Wars. Mizusawa is located
about 500 km north of Tokyo, and its citizens show a strong interest in
the observatory's astronomical and geophysical research. Name proposed
by the discoverers following a suggestion by K. Hurukawa, who was an
astronomer there during 1960-1969. Citation prepared by K. Yokoyama."

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=3x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

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

Make that 8.023 BILLION light years in the third paragraph. Makes a
"slight" difference.
Rick

On 6/29/2012 12:55 AM, Rick Johnson wrote:
NGC 5701 is a quasi ringed barred spiral about 80 million light-years
distant in Virgo. The arms are very faint. They are quite odd in that
the inner half of each arm that forms the ring is red while the center
to outer half is blue. I've never seen arms so segregated as to star
color (temperature) before. Hot blue stars to the outside of western arm
and middle of eastern and in clusters while the red streams are smooth
and composed of old, cool, red stars.

The field around it has several very distant galaxies with red shift
data from the WIG catalog (WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey). The one just
northeast of NGC 5701 near a bright somewhat orange star at 5.6 billion
light-years is listed at magnitude 22.8 if you are wondering how faint
this image goes. Slightly brighter at magnitude 22.6 is the most distant
galaxy I've picked up at 7.0 (6.962 to be exact beyond reason) billion
light-years. To the southeast of NGC 5701 is another that also rounds to
7.0 (6.957) which is a bit brighter. All are listed as emission line
galaxies.

I'm reporting this as I researched it. I was really excited about 7
billion light-year galaxies in my image. That's the range of quasars.
Turns out I excite easily as no sooner was that sinking in than
continuing down the list of WIG galaxies I came upon WIG
S15J143912038+05164280 with a z=1.059240. That blew me away. At
magnitude 23.4 I didn't expect it to make it through the JPG process but
there it was! That, by NED's 5 year WMAP calculations puts it 8.023
light years distant! Yikes. Since this WIG survey is very limited in
scope it appears likely that many of the very faint "stars" in my images
are unrecognized very distant galaxies. This is the first field covered
by WIG I've imaged. There may be more in the more than a year's worth of
unprocessed images. I just don't know. This one too is an emission line
galaxy meaning it likely has an AGN at its core making it brighter than
typical for a galaxy.

It turned out there were many dozen galaxies in the image at or beyond 6
billion light-years that were listed only in the WIG survey. As with the
above galaxies all were very dim and barely able to survive the JPG
compression process. So after noting many WIG galaxies within about 5
minutes of NGC 5701 I got more choosy and only picked up those bright
enough to certainly survive the JPG compression though you will likely
have to enlarge the image to see some of them. Dozens are in the raw
FITS file that just won't survive and were therefore not marked.

There are 3 quasars and one asteroid in the image. The asteroid is
(7530) Mizusawa at an estimated magnitude of 16.5. The naming citation
is rather long.

"(7530) Mizusawa = 1994 GO1
Named in commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of the International
Latitude Observatory of Mizusawa, established by the Japanese government
according to a resolution adopted by the International Association of
Geodesy in 1899 as one of the six stations of the International Latitude
Service, at a latitude of +39°08'. In 1988 the Observatory was
transferred to the Division of Earth Rotation of the National
Astronomical Observatory. The observations have never been interrupted,
even during the two World Wars. Mizusawa is located about 500 km north
of Tokyo, and its citizens show a strong interest in the observatory's
astronomical and geophysical research. Name proposed by the discoverers
following a suggestion by K. Hurukawa, who was an astronomer there
during 1960-1969. Citation prepared by K. Yokoyama."

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=3x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick


--
Prefix is correct. Domain is arvig dot net