PERSEUS2

Perseus 2 also known as KKH 12 is a likely member of the Maffei 1 group of nearby galaxies hidden by our galaxies dust and gas. It is located on the east-northeastern edge of the double cluster which explains the increase in rather bright blue stars toward the western (right) side of the image. The lone estimate of its distance which is based on the assumption it is part of the group puts it at 3 kiloparsecs or about 10,000 light-years to one significant digit. Now you can all go back to your images of the double cluster and see if you picked it up! NED considers it an irregular galaxy. Looks pretty much like a featureless disk galaxy to me. There's an oblong orange object near its core. I can't tell if it is a core, which doesn't fit the irregular classification, or a double star in our galaxy too close for me to separate. Looking at its PSF I'd say it is one object as the center of it is the brightest pixel in my FITS image. This would make it a spiral galaxy if correct so I'm likely wrong. It is surprisingly neutral in color for such an obscured galaxy. That could mean it is a very blue galaxy if we could see it without all the dust and gas of our galaxy blocking the view. Of course, that argues against the orange object being its core.

The only other obvious galaxy in the image is LEDA 168301 to the south-west of Perseus 2. NED has no significant information on it. They classify it as U. I have no idea what U means. They leave that classification blank when there isn't one so I doubt it means unknown. If anyone out there knows please let me know. It appears heavily reddened by the dust of our galaxy.

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

Related Designations for PERSEUS2

PETESCHULTZ

This is an intentional image of asteroids. I was fortunate to go to high school with Pete Schultz. We helped form the Prairie Astronomy Club in 1961 we did a lot of astrophotography together from a cow pasture south of Lincoln Nebraska. I found many cowpies the hard way, he seemed to avoid them. He worked for a camera store and would show up with some really nice gear the store let him field test. So he was using thousands of dollars worth of gear while I was using home made stuff and el cheapo cameras and lenses scrounged from the used bin at camera stores. Now he shoots holes in comets (Deep Impact) and the moon "LCROSS) and gets sued by a Russian astrologer for ruining her so called forecasts. I wish I was kidding, but he no longer attends conferences in Russia for fear of being arrested.

This June (2010) we were both giving talks at the same gathering. As usual his was better and far more exciting as he used a gun to create craters that perfectly modeled ejecta trajectories of known impacts. These showed why LCROSS' change of target at the last minute prevented the impact from being seen from earth. He still has the same energy he had over 50 years ago. Wish I did. My grown son's comment about our talks was "Neat Dad but your friend was AWESOME!" He was, I have to agree. Anyway, he told me that he has an asteroid named after him so I had to give a go at imaging it for him.

I tried taking his asteroid last summer but it was lost in dense Milky Way and further away so much fainter. Conditions were much better this year. It was against a far less dense star field and a couple magnitudes brighter at magnitude 17.3.

There are three other asteroids in the image.
(168440) 1998 WT2 at magnitude 19.2
(147923) 2006 VK34 at magnitude 19.3
(19753) 2000 CL94 at magnitude 17.1

These are all estimated magnitudes by the minor planet center. Sometimes I find I disagree with their estimates but these seem quite reasonable compared to my data. Sorry Pete -- you weren't the brightest in the field.

The naming citation for his asteroid reads:
"Peter H. Schultz, a geologist at Brown University, has studied cratering phenomena experimentally and in the field. He has played a major role in defining and developing the Deep Impact mission, particularly through his cratering experiments at the NASA Ames Vertical Gun Range."

I'm encluding a picture from the 2010 of Pete (left) and me on the right. The fellow in the middle is Jack Dunn the local planetarium director at the time (since retired). Pete's the oldest and the only one not retired.

Animation and the still image are made from the same data.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

The still and annotated images are attached. None of the galaxies in the image had red shift data available so only the asteroids are pointed out on the annotated image.

Related Designations for PETESCHULTZ

PGC003182

MCG+12-02-001/PGC 3182 is a major train wreck of two galaxies about 200 million light-years from us in northern Cassiopeia. NED classifies each as E? pec and as LIRG (Luminous InfraRed Galaxies). There is so much dust that these came out super red when I processed them. Very little blue was seen in either except near the cores. An artificial color image by the HST shows what appear to be expected colors without the dust. I assume they made severe adjustments for the dust. I looked up the IR and blue frames used on the HST site and the result was the same color I was getting. I normally don't adjust one part of an image to get a galaxy or whatever "right". I normally adjust the entire frame based on the stars using eXcalibrator. The HST image and text about it can be found here: http://hubblesite.org/image/2330/news_release/2008-16 Their version has south at the top while I put north at the top. They give a distance of 200 million light-years or 50 million parsecs. It appears they rounded that to one significant digit. NED's redshift puts it at about 210 million light-years using my usual two significant digits. One highly suspect Tully-Fisher measurement says 42 million parsecs which works out to be 140 million light-years. NASA's 50 million parsecs is 160 million light-years which is close to the T-F measurement while the light-year figure agrees well with the redshift measurement. In other words, we don't really know its distance very well at all.

These are not very large galaxies even all spread out by the collision. Assuming a distance of 200 million light-years the lower (southern) galaxy is a tad over 50,000 light-years across and the upper 60 million light-years across its much wider but far less populated plumes. Obviously before the collision both were much smaller with the southern one probably larger. It's higher mass helping to hold its plumes in check while the lower mass of the northern galaxy allowed it to be pretty well torn apart and spread all over. At least that's what I saw back in the early 1980's when I ran simplified galaxy collisions on what passed for a powerful computer of the day.

This far north and deep in the Zone of Avoidance there is no useful data on anything else in the image so no annotated image was prepared.

After seeing the initial 10 frames I realized this one was so obscured I needed more data so ran it a second time for twice my usual data. It could have used even more.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=8x10 RGB=4x10, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for PGC003182

PGC009247

PGC 9247 is a SAB(rs)bc spiral galaxy about 210 million light-years distant in the southeast corner of Andromeda. While its core region is relatively bright and lacks blue stars it is surrounded by a very faint set of very blue arms. This too was taken through thick smoke that has plagued me in late September from fires over 1600 km from me. The smoke had thinned some by the time this was taken and didn't totally kill blue and green light as it had for a couple earlier objects. Still, it cost me a lot of photons making the field a couple magnitudes fainter than it should be and nearly cost me any chance to catch the faint outer arms. Still, I think the color balance is closer to reality for this one than others taken through the thick smoke. Seeing was better as well but far from great.

This area of the sky is poorly studied for galaxies and only one other had any redshift data. It's near the upper edge of my frame to the east, left. NED identifies it as KIG 0102:[VOV2007] 011 while my The Sky gives it the extended PGC designation of PGC 2153581. NED puts it at magnitude 15.1 while The Sky says 17.3. My image, even with the smoke agrees with The Sky saying 17.2 but my smoke compensation may not be perfect. NED follows a magnitude estimate with the filter used. In this case, they show "E" in that field. I know of no such filter. If anyone knows let me know. I can only think it is for "Estimate" in which case it is way off the mark.

The only other object in the field with redshift data at NED is a quasar near the left edge also in the northeast quadrant. Nothing else in the field has redshift data so I didn't identify what few others NED even listed.

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

Related Designations for PGC009247

PGC009892

A galaxy of a different color --

Maffei 1 was originally cataloged as a nebula. It is SH2-191 in the Sharpless catalog of emission nebula for instance. It was recognized as a huge elliptical galaxy by Paolo Maffei in 1968 along with a nearby giant spiral Maffei 2. It lies only 0.6 degrees from our galactic plane. If in clear skies it would be a just visible naked eye galaxy. Maffei 1 is thought to be about 10 million light-years away in the constellation of Cassiopeia. The error bar for that is about +/- 1 million light-years. http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/368339

Normally I see galaxies of this color only when they are several billion light years distant and thus reddened by that many light years of inter galactic gas and dust. Here I got the same color from only the dust along the plane of our galaxy.

While Maffei 1 was thought to be an emission nebula the blue reflection nebula northeast of the galaxy in my picture, ZOAG G135.91-00.47 was listed in the Zone of Avoidance Galaxy catalog about the same time Maffei was discovering the galaxy wasn't a nebula. It wasn't until 2003, thanks to the Midcourse Space Experiment ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midcourse_Space_Experiment ) it was determined to be a nebula forming new stars. That put it in the MSE catalog as [KSP2003] J023709.98+594231.0. To the north northwest less than 2 minutes away is another nebulous patch. This one isn't as blue. The only thing I find in SIMBAD in the area is centered a few seconds of arc below the star that seems embedded in it. Simbad classes it as an HII source though it is mostly listed in catalogs for CO masers and other IR catalogs. It also made the Midcourse Space Experiment catalog as MSX6C G135.8914-00.4580. For an HII region it is an odd bluish color rather than HII pink. I suspect it is both a reflection and emission nebula but the reflection light outshines the H alpha pink.

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Related Designations for PGC009892

PGC014241

UGCA 86/PGC 14241 is a nearby Im galaxy likely part of the Maffei 1 group of highly obscured galaxies. It is located only 1.5 degrees southeast of IC 342. One paper indicates UGCA may be tidally interacting with IC 342. It certainly is a distorted looking affair. Discovered first (it has been independently rediscovered a couple times since then) in 1974 it is described by the UGCA in 1974 as "...several regions visible on red POSS; probably connected; intragalactic object?" So at that time, it wasn't certain this was even a galaxy. Being so obscured its true appearance may be rather different from what is seen in optical images. Some areas are quite reddened by dust while others still somewhat blue. Are these blue regions less reddened or is the color difference real? I suspect both might be involved. NED has a wide range of distance estimates using various means. They range from 2.6 million light-years to 14.3 with a median value of 8.6 million light-years. The generally accepted distance to IC 342 is 10 million light-years which would also be the distance to UGCA 86 if it is interacting with it. Heavily obscured galaxies like this one are very hard to study! For example, NED shows the core object in the bright blue region in the southeastern part of the galaxy as VII Zw 009, a galaxy but then notes: "This may be part of the galaxy UGCA 086." The galaxy seems fairly large the part I can see in my raw data measures out at 9.7 minutes across. At 10 million light-years that is about 28,000 light-years across. It isn't as big as it looks being so close. Typical for an irregular galaxy so we may be seeing much of its extent.

The only other galaxy in the image worth pointing out is HFLLZOA L090. It is to the east-southeast of UGCA 86 and has a very large but faint red disk around a bright core region. Redshift puts it at 110 million light-years. That makes it only about 40,000 light-years across. How much we don't see due to dust in our galaxy blocking the view I don't know. NED classifies it as U whatever that means. I asked NED what they meant but never got a reply. Since I'm picking this one up at 11 times the distance of UGCA 86 it makes me wonder if UGCA 86 is all that heavily obscured or is HFLLZOA L090 a really bright galaxy that would be fantastic if not for being heavily obscured? The truth likely lies somewhere in between these two options.

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Related Designations for PGC014241

PGC015439

With DDO 005 I seem to have entered my "Dark Period". Here's another one with little in the way of background galaxies. Though in the case of DDO 005 it was due to such poor conditions they didn't make it through the gunk of our atmosphere. In the case of UGCA 92, it is the gunk of our galaxy that is the culprit.

UGCA 92 is a member of the highly obscured Maffei group. It is located in Camelopardalis (a giraffe rather than a camel though I see neither in its pattern of faint stars) some 6.5 million light-years away. Distance to this obscured object is very difficult to determine. This is a very approximate value, In any case, it is very nearby. Redshift at such close distances is useless. In fact, it is blue shifted. NED has 6 different distance estimates listed which range from 2.6 to 10.1 million light-years with a median value of 6.5. It is classed as Im? which is an irregular of the Magellanic type, maybe. Just not enough is seen through the gunk.

NED lists 11 other galaxies in my field, none with even magnitude estimates let alone redshift data. All are from the 2MASS survey. Looking closely I see far more in the image. Apparently, they weren't bright enough at 2 microns to make the survey. The lack of galaxies is, of course, due to the heavy extinction in this part of the sky. The field isn't far from the Heart and Soul Nebulae to give you an idea how obscured this area is.

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Related Designations for PGC015439

PGC016636

PGC 16636 (aka PGC 16639) is a severely warped edge on spiral in western Orion just north of Eridanus about 190 to 200 million light-years distant. NED classifies it as Sb pec sp. It certainly is peculiar. The eastern (left) side of the disk is seen virtually edge on though the disk is unusually fuzzy. Usually when seen edge on the disk is sharply defined while this one sort of fades away but the main part is obviously very thin. The western (right) side, however, is tilted rather strongly so we see one face of the disk. Which way it is twisted (do we see the top or bottom side) I can't say. The dust lane takes a sudden jog as it leaves the bright region and heads onto the disk. It may be that rather than being twisted the west side is just a lot fuzzier without a defined plane. I rather doubt that but it would help explain why the dust lane continues across an apparently warped disk. I found not a single paper on this galaxy so have no idea what is going on here.

I'm still working an area poorly cataloged for galaxies. Only two others have redshift data. Both are seen in the cropped image. 6dF J0503238-025745 is 1.22 billion light-years distant. NED doesn't classify it. It is the apparent face on disk galaxy below the eastern end of PGC 16636. A small galaxy is just east of it (2MASX J05032490-0257494). While most of the other galaxies in the image aren't listed at NED that one was. The other galaxy with redshift data is LEDA 3080778 at the very bottom of the cropped image. NED puts it at 1.20 billion light-years. It may be related to the other distant one. I find no other information worth mentioning on the rest of the field.

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Related Designations for PGC016636

PGC016957

UGCA 105/PGC 016957 is a galaxy in the Maffei 1 group. It is located in Camelopardalis. The Maffei 1 group is thought to be about 10 million light-years away. Several distance measurements for UGCA 105 put it about 11 million light-years away. NED classifies it as Im while other sources say Sm. My image appears to support the Sm classification. The field was very difficult to process because of the 6th magnitude star, SAO 13413 to the northwest and 8th magnitude SAO 13423 just to the southeast of the galaxy. These cast strong but uneven glaring artifacts over the image. Also, the field is full of faint nebulosity. Separating glare from real signal was difficult. I likely left in some artifacts. The galaxy is heavily obscured. I was surprised at the very blue outlying regions. I'd expect them to be reddened by all the dust. Could be they are mostly artifacts or reflection nebulae though they appear to hint at a spiral pattern of outlying arms of the galaxy. The core appears an off color for most galaxy core regions. Conditions were rather good for this image so I'd expect the color to be reasonably correct.

I suspect this galaxy would be quite spectacular if we could actually see it without our galaxy's dust obscuring the view. This was taken on my best fall night. I can't blame the weather for hiding it, it is all our galaxy's fault.

Due to all the obscuring dust few other galaxies appear in the image. Those that do have no significant data at NED so no annotated image was made.

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Related Designations for PGC016957

PGC017588

MCG +08-11-002/PGC 017558 is a galaxy in northern Auriga on the eastern edge of the Milky Way so rather obscured. It is about 250 million light-years distant. Without good photometric data on the stars, even eXcalibrator had little to go on for removing the reddening of the dust. I sort of adjusted until the quantity of red and blue stars seemed about right. The galaxy is still quite red. More on that in a bit.

NED lists it simply as a spiral and a LIRG (Luminous Infrared Galaxy). I'd say it is a very disrupted spiral. While LIRG aren't necessarily red many are. What the LIRG label often means is the galaxy has lots of dust warmed by starburst level activity hidden behind the warm dust. In this galaxy, the activity is thought to be the result of the merger of two galaxies in the recent past. The resulting mess has a diameter of about 60 million light-years with hints of faint plumes (I need a lot more time to verify these) that may extend about twice this distance.

I've included an HST image of the galaxy rotated to match my north up orientation and image scale of my 0.67" per pixel cropped image. This shows the added resolution obtained by working outside our distorting atmosphere. The article it was taken from with the full resolution HST image with north to the left is at: http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0810bl/ . The HST image isn't as reddened as mine. This is likely due to their choice of filters in that they used a photometric deep blue filter 435nm and an Infrared I band filter (814nm) and averaged the two to make a pseudo green.

Being in the Zone of Avoidance NED had no distance data on any other galaxy in the field so no annotated image was prepared.

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

Related Designations for PGC017588