ASTRO: IC 4630

IC 4630 was suggested to me by Sakib Rasool. It is a spiral starburst
galaxy which is likely the result of a merger in progress. It is a
mostly white galaxy with two plumes. NED classes it as S? It is
located in Hercules below the keystone at a distance of a bit under a
half billion light-years. Besides the plumes it has a nearly complete
arc around a bright core. I find little on it other than it is included
in many papers about mergers in progress. The annotated image show a
number of related galaxies at its redshift. Most are smaller galaxies.
I've annotated them by catalog entry rather than the generic G or Q used
for the rest. With so many in the immediate area it's not much of a
stretch to think this galaxy has been feeding on its dwarf neighbors for
a long time.

I got a surprise when I looked at the first image as it came in as there
was a bad reflection in the upper left corner. I moved the scope
slightly but it was unmoved. Reflections move or vanish when the
scope's aim is changed slightly. I let it go expecting to remove it
during processing. That was last June. Before I took it out when
processing the image I checked the Sloan image of the area and there was
the "reflection" just as it appeared in my image. Like IC 4630 it was
quite white in color on the Sloan image. So it is real. Real what I
don't know. Neither NED nor SIMBAD show anything in that position. It
likely is a small piece of rather bright IFN. I see some hints of other
pieces throughout the frame, just much fainter.

As happens rather often there was what appeared as a trio of interacting
galaxies due east (left) of IC 4630 about two thirds of the way to the
edge. Neither NED nor SIMBAD show anything at its location. The Sloan
Survey image shows it is real and very blue. Could be either a single
rather disrupted looking irregular galaxy or two or three superimposed
blue galaxies. Two other faint fuzzies I was interested in are also
missing from both NED and SIMBAD. All are noted with a question mark in
the annotated image.

Also in the upper left corner and well within the mystery "reflection"
is this entry "GC/C 4 or 6 Members 4.14p/3.58". NED shows two galaxy
clusters at almost the exact same position with an error circle
sufficient to include both. One has a photographic distance based on
photometric data, the other uses spectroscopic data. Are they the same
cluster or two different ones? Another much larger one at 3.67 billion
light-years is in the area. Does it include the other two? NED lists
no size for any other than galaxy count. It appears I'm not picking up
but a very few of the cluster member other than the anchoring bright
cluster galaxies.

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

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

Lots of interesting stuff in this image.
The arced galaxy looks a bit like an amoeba :-)

Stefan

"Rick Johnson" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...

IC 4630 was suggested to me by Sakib Rasool. It is a spiral starburst
galaxy which is likely the result of a merger in progress. It is a
mostly white galaxy with two plumes. NED classes it as S? It is
located in Hercules below the keystone at a distance of a bit under a
half billion light-years. Besides the plumes it has a nearly complete
arc around a bright core. I find little on it other than it is included
in many papers about mergers in progress. The annotated image show a
number of related galaxies at its redshift. Most are smaller galaxies.
I've annotated them by catalog entry rather than the generic G or Q used
for the rest. With so many in the immediate area it's not much of a
stretch to think this galaxy has been feeding on its dwarf neighbors for
a long time.

I got a surprise when I looked at the first image as it came in as there
was a bad reflection in the upper left corner. I moved the scope
slightly but it was unmoved. Reflections move or vanish when the
scope's aim is changed slightly. I let it go expecting to remove it
during processing. That was last June. Before I took it out when
processing the image I checked the Sloan image of the area and there was
the "reflection" just as it appeared in my image. Like IC 4630 it was
quite white in color on the Sloan image. So it is real. Real what I
don't know. Neither NED nor SIMBAD show anything in that position. It
likely is a small piece of rather bright IFN. I see some hints of other
pieces throughout the frame, just much fainter.

As happens rather often there was what appeared as a trio of interacting
galaxies due east (left) of IC 4630 about two thirds of the way to the
edge. Neither NED nor SIMBAD show anything at its location. The Sloan
Survey image shows it is real and very blue. Could be either a single
rather disrupted looking irregular galaxy or two or three superimposed
blue galaxies. Two other faint fuzzies I was interested in are also
missing from both NED and SIMBAD. All are noted with a question mark in
the annotated image.

Also in the upper left corner and well within the mystery "reflection"
is this entry "GC/C 4 or 6 Members 4.14p/3.58". NED shows two galaxy
clusters at almost the exact same position with an error circle
sufficient to include both. One has a photographic distance based on
photometric data, the other uses spectroscopic data. Are they the same
cluster or two different ones? Another much larger one at 3.67 billion
light-years is in the area. Does it include the other two? NED lists
no size for any other than galaxy count. It appears I'm not picking up
but a very few of the cluster member other than the anchoring bright
cluster galaxies.

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

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