Object name: WBL179

Designation(s): WBL179, IC0504, IC0505, IC0506,

WBL 179 is in a field jam-packed with galaxies. The 7 brightest make up the WBL 179 group. 5 of which are about 400 million light-years distant and 2 are half that distance. This appears to be part of a much larger cluster, ZwCl 0820.6+0436 which is just over a degree in diameter and contains 163 galaxies. While NED puts it at about 400 million light-years distant the vast majority of the galaxies in my image and out to a larger area cover a wide range of distances. Many out to 1.2 billion light-years. NED lists a couple clusters at that distance, WHL J082258.9+041756 with 29 members and SDSS-C4-DR3 1283 with 23. Their positions differ by only 2\" of arc so are likely referring to the same group, just defined slightly differently. Many other lesser groups are listed at NED that likely are subgroups of these. As usual, I picked up a few very distant galaxies but most fall within 1.3 billion light-years. The result is one of the densest annotated images I\'ve made as I included all NED had a redshift value for and were bright enough to survive JPG compression.

What drew me to the field is that the brighter galaxies and stars seem arranged in an oval shape. This is lost in the annotated image but shows well in the full image. Our brains are designed to see patterns, though which ones seem a personal thing. Jesus in toast looked like Frank Zappa to me and I\'m yet to see the \"Running Chicken\". Still, the oval struck me so it went on the to-do list. That large number of fainter galaxies were gravy.

The field is located in northwestern Hydra. All three IC galaxies were discovered by Lewis Swift on March 8, 1888. Apparently, the others were too faint for his telescope. He was using the 16\" Clark refractor at Warner Observatory, Rochester, New York. It was later moved to Echo Mountain in California. Some of the other galaxies seem bright enough for a 16\" refractor so how he missed them I don\'t understand. Though likely the expansion of Rochester was hurting his skies. He moved it to California in 1893, 5 years after finding these galaxies.

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

Permanent link: http://images.mantrapskies.com/catalog/OTHER/WBL179-IC0504-IC0505-IC0506/IC0504L4X10RGB2X10.JPG

Permanent link: http://images.mantrapskies.com/catalog/OTHER/WBL179-IC0504-IC0505-IC0506/IC0504L4X10RGB2X10CROP125.JPG

Permanent link: http://images.mantrapskies.com/catalog/OTHER/WBL179-IC0504-IC0505-IC0506/IC0504L4X10RGB2X10ID.JPG