M 89 seen a bit differently than usual

M 89/NGC 4552 is a large elliptical galaxy in Virgo. As a member of the
Virgo Cluster it is likely about 60 million light-years away. NED
classes it as E;LINER;HII, Sy2 while the NGC project says simply that it
is E. Though a paper I read insists this is wrong and it is an S0 galaxy.

I'd ignored most elliptical galaxies as boring. You'd think by now I'd
realize almost all galaxies are very interesting if you dig deep enough.
Nope I only took this image because it was an M object I hadn't added
to my digital library. So sure it was blah I'd not paid it any
attention until I went to process this image. Then the fun began. At
first I thought my flats were bad as there was a faint halo around the
galaxy, mostly to the south as well as a large smudge to the southwest.
I was debating whether I could salvage the mess when I found that
these were real. It has a large but very faint halo few seem to have
picked up except on a very deep images such as one by David Malin.
Turns out I only picked up part of it. The large elongated smudge is
thought to be the remains of M89's last meal that it is still digesting.
Malin's image is at: http://messier.seds.org/more/m089_aat.html . It
needs far more time than I gave it to pull out these features as more
than a hint. Doesn't help that my L filter had loosened in the filter
wheel and rotated slightly so the dust mots didn't line up perfectly
limiting how far I could stretch the image.

The annotated image shows the globular clusters NED listed that were
visible in my image. They are noted by *CL label just to their right.
I found that just by looking at them I couldn't tell a faint star from a
distant galaxy from a globular cluster. A plate solve however made it
easy to separate one from the other. I noted the galaxies (even though
there's no distance known) with a G?. Stars were left unlabeled. One
NED lists as a globular is rather orange which bothers me. Seems an odd
color for a globular cluster. Looking at it in the Sloan image it
looked perfectly star-like. It is on the southeast side of M89 with an
anonymous galaxy (not in NED) beyond it.

One of the smaller smudges in the halo turns out to be VCC 1613 which
NED shows as a dE2 galaxy (dwarf elliptical). The other smudge to the
north wasn't listed in NED but I do see it in the second image at:
http://cseligman.com/text/atlas/ngc45a.htm . Note the orange "globular"
looks like an ordinary star in this image. I really question NED's
identification of it as a globular.

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

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

Great picture Rick.
The tidal tail shows well in your image and you even managed to keep it
pretty. The small galaxies everywhere are a treat too.

Stefan

"Rick Johnson" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...

M 89/NGC 4552 is a large elliptical galaxy in Virgo. As a member of the
Virgo Cluster it is likely about 60 million light-years away. NED
classes it as E;LINER;HII, Sy2 while the NGC project says simply that it
is E. Though a paper I read insists this is wrong and it is an S0 galaxy.

I'd ignored most elliptical galaxies as boring. You'd think by now I'd
realize almost all galaxies are very interesting if you dig deep enough.
Nope I only took this image because it was an M object I hadn't added
to my digital library. So sure it was blah I'd not paid it any
attention until I went to process this image. Then the fun began. At
first I thought my flats were bad as there was a faint halo around the
galaxy, mostly to the south as well as a large smudge to the southwest.
I was debating whether I could salvage the mess when I found that
these were real. It has a large but very faint halo few seem to have
picked up except on a very deep images such as one by David Malin.
Turns out I only picked up part of it. The large elongated smudge is
thought to be the remains of M89's last meal that it is still digesting.
Malin's image is at: http://messier.seds.org/more/m089_aat.html . It
needs far more time than I gave it to pull out these features as more
than a hint. Doesn't help that my L filter had loosened in the filter
wheel and rotated slightly so the dust mots didn't line up perfectly
limiting how far I could stretch the image.

The annotated image shows the globular clusters NED listed that were
visible in my image. They are noted by *CL label just to their right.
I found that just by looking at them I couldn't tell a faint star from a
distant galaxy from a globular cluster. A plate solve however made it
easy to separate one from the other. I noted the galaxies (even though
there's no distance known) with a G?. Stars were left unlabeled. One
NED lists as a globular is rather orange which bothers me. Seems an odd
color for a globular cluster. Looking at it in the Sloan image it
looked perfectly star-like. It is on the southeast side of M89 with an
anonymous galaxy (not in NED) beyond it.

One of the smaller smudges in the halo turns out to be VCC 1613 which
NED shows as a dE2 galaxy (dwarf elliptical). The other smudge to the
north wasn't listed in NED but I do see it in the second image at:
http://cseligman.com/text/atlas/ngc45a.htm . Note the orange "globular"
looks like an ordinary star in this image. I really question NED's
identification of it as a globular.

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

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