ASTRO: NGC 1207

NGC 1207 is a nice face on spiral in Perseus. It made my list for two
reasons. First of all it is a bit odd in shape with two odd arms that,
at first glance, come from two cores. The two cores is an illusion as
one is just a field star. The other reason for making my list is it is
one of the second Herschel 400 objects. While I'm far from done with
the first list I am also picking up an occasional object from the second
list when it is otherwise interesting as in this case. William Herschel
discovered it in 1786. The galaxy is about 210 million light-years
distant. NED classifies it as SA(rs)b while the NGC project says simply
Sb. I see a faint orange bar going nearly north south from the core to
the ring. Apparently it doesn't meet the requirements of a true bar.

It has a companion, also about 210 million light-years away to the west,
CGCG 524-054. While it appears to be a spiral it isn't classified at
NED. Also it has a strange dark lane cutting across the southwest part
of the disk. Is it really part of the galaxy or a small dark cloud
between us, possibly in our galaxy that creates this odd feature. The
elongation of the core is another illusion. The eastern side is
actually a star. My stretch has blended the core and the star into one
feature. Where's good seeing gone to?

Like other galaxies I've processed of late this one is in an area little
studied for its galaxies. While NED lists about 18 galaxies in my field
from the 2MASS survey not one has distance nor even magnitude data so,
again, no annotated image.

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

Rick
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