UGC00006

UGC 6 is a merger in progress in the eastern side of the Great Square of Pegasus. It is located about 280 million light-years by redshift and about 330 million light-years by Tully Fisher. The odd loops are likely stars ripped from the merging galaxy and mark its path of doom. I didn't realize it also had very faint sprays of stars that arc around it from the northwest to the southwest. They extend some 120,000 light-years from the galaxy's core.

At the top of the image is the very blue galaxy UGC 00011 at a redshift distance of 190 million light-years. There is one distance measurement using Cepheid variables listed by NED that is apparently very wrong as it says it is only 160,000 light-years from us which would make it part of the local group, likely a satellite of the Milky Way, and easily resolved into stars. Instead, I see a distant "sloshed" galaxy. That's one in which the core has been pulled way off center. Usually, this is due to passing by some massive galaxy. In this case, there's nothing in the area so I'm puzzled how it got that way. I found nothing much on the galaxy and certainly nothing addressing this issue. In any case, it is far closer than UGC 6 and thus unrelated to it or its "companion" to its southeast.

The "companion" is a small spiral at about the same distance as UGC 6, so not related to UGC 11. NED calls it UGC 11 NOTES01. It also carries its own designation in other catalogs. The annotated image uses the LEDA catalog number for it. Of the three galaxies with redshift data, it is the only normal looking one.

Superimposed on it is 2MASX J00033471+2204499 just south of the nucleus. I took it for a star but in the Sloan image, it is very rectangular. That was lost in my much poorer seeing. Other than that it does appear quite starlike even to the Sloan scope. No redshift is given. Its brightness would argue it is closer but that's not necessarily the case. Only a couple other galaxies are even listed in NED, none have much information and are known only by their position which is most of their catalog "name".

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Related Designations for UGC00006

UGC00240

UGC 240 is another galaxy that Arp could have put in his Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies but didn't. It has a great plume to the west and some hints of one to the east. It's close companion LEDA 212513 is accused of the crime of creating the plume. It seems way to small to have so damaged a much bigger galaxy without significant harm to itself. No distance measurement has apparently been made for it so I assume it is possible it isn't even related. UGC 240 is classified as SAB(rs)b with a redshift that puts it about 380 million light-years distant though a single Tully-Fisher measurement shows it 100 million light-years closer. Including the west plume, it is some 150,000 light-years across assuming the redshift distance (110,000 using the Tully Fisher distance). The main disk is 100,000 light-years across at the longer distance, 75,000 at the closer distance. The field is in central Pisces.

Two other galaxies are listed at about the same redshift as UGC 240. Others may be related as well but without any distance data, this can't be determined. In fact, there's little information on the entire field. I'd not have prepared an annotated image but there are 5 asteroids in the image (plus a 6th that was too faint in the LRGB combine but is barely seen in the FITS luminance stack.

The image contains three objects listed as UvES (Ultraviolet Excess Source) which are also listed as QSO candidates. I've seen this a lot when they have photographically determined redshift data but never without it. Never before this field that is. So how they are decided they are likely quasars I don't know. One is also listed in another catalog as simply a blue star and that's exactly what it appears to be in the image. At 16th magnitude, it is rather bright for a quasar.

Two galaxy clusters are listed. Their positions are listed with a 35" error circle so the line is drawn to the center of that error circle. Neither has a listed size and only one has a galaxy count.

There are a ton of interesting galaxies in the image I'd like to know about but aren't listed in NED at all.

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

Related Designations for UGC00240

UGC00672

UGC 672 is a dwarf elliptical galaxy that is a member of our local group -- or isn't, the argument is ongoing. I can't find a reliable distance for it, NED says 21 million light-years. In any case, it lies well beyond M31, the great Andromeda Galaxy but how far beyond I haven't been able to tell. Some think it related to NGC 278. If so that puts it beyond the local group. Let's guess it is somewhere between 15 and 26 million light years away. In any case, it is by far the most distant dwarf I've tried to image as of December 2007. The near lack of success would seem to indicate I'm at my limit. It is the rectangular somewhat blue fuzz patch in the center with a foreground star at its center. That star is in our own galaxy. What I didn't realize was that at the very bottom edge of the image is a dwarf galaxy that is orbiting the great Andromeda Galaxy! It is of the very same type as the Draco Dwarf I imaged orbiting our galaxy. That is, made of widely separated, dim, old stars and containing far more dark matter than ordinary matter. This is known as Andromeda X. X for ten rather an unknown. It is seen as the scattering of faint stars at the very bottom of the image below and running left of UGC 672. Only a dozen or so of its brightest members are in my image. A couple faint very distant galaxies are mixed in as slightly fuzzy stars. The area contains foreground stars as well so is very hard to pick out. This too was a lost image found on the hard drive that I'd planned to go back to. I need to put UGC 672 higher in the frame to get all of Andromeda X and take several nights to cover it. As of February 2017 that still hasn't happened.

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Related Designations for UGC00672

UGC00813

I've been covering Arp Galaxies as time permits (I have several dozen waiting processing). They are usually very interesting but aren't the only interesting galaxies out there. Arp missed the Taffy Galaxies. No, they aren't named after someone named Taffy. They are named after the candy! They come in pairs as they are interacting galaxies. Only two pairs are known. Both discovered by the same team of radio astronomers. The first in 1990 and the second in 2002. The get the name from their appearance in radio "light" rather than visual light.

The link is to a Science News article in 2002 when the second pair was discovered that displays a radio map of the system superimposed on a visual image of them.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/2717/title/Heavenly_Taffy_Galaxies_in_collision
It will explain in more detail what is going on here. (Sorry, while the image is available the text is mostly behind a paywall now.) Simply the collision has created a magnetic field connection between the two along which neutral gas, mostly hydrogen, is found. These fields are being pulled much as taffy is pulled hence the name. Visually it isn't as interesting as the other Taffy Galaxy pair. I do see a very slight reddish hue between the galaxy much as that seen in some dark nebula. Does this indicate some dust is coming along with the neutral gas? I don't know. I'd need longer exposures to tell for sure. This Taffy is three galaxies all at the same distance and thus forming their own local group. Only two are involved with the collision, however. Note the color difference in the "innocent" galaxy. No massive star formation is going on in it as is going on the two that collided. They are, east to west (left to right), UGC 816, UGC 813 and the innocent MCG+08-03-011. All are about 230 million light-years away. While they are somewhat distorted they don't have the long tidal arms usually associated with galactic collisions. But the core of 813 is double showing it took a direct hit by the collision that was too rapid for tidal arms to develop though the ends of both are obviously distorted.

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Related Designations for UGC00813

UGC01767

My target was originally UGC 01767 a very messed up galaxy. Or is it two galaxies? But when I looked at the field I saw another mess of a galaxy so moved the center a bit to catch it. But I moved 10 minutes instead 5 and saw what appeared to be two interacting galaxies so I centered so I could catch all three with room to spare on either side. Turns out there was also an odd apparent one armed spiral and a low surface brightness spiral as well. I ended up with lots of strange and messed up galaxies. All are in southeastern Andromeda just above Triangulum. Those with distance estimates fall into two groups, one at about 220 million light-years on the western side of the image (right) and the others at 280 million light-years on the eastern side (left).

Three of the western galaxies, UGC 1767, UGC 1172 and CGCG 523-011 constitute the galaxy group WBL 067. CGCG 523-011 is listed as the first of the three but has no redshift data so may or may not be a physical member of the group. It is listed as "Compact" though to my eye looks like a one armed spiral. Usually, compact galaxies have little detail being just bright small blobs with a sharp edge. This doesn't fit what I've always considered a compact galaxy though does appear as one on the POSS plates which may explain its classification. If it is a member at 220 million light-years it is 27,000 light-years across. That size is typical of many compact galaxies.

As mentioned my main target was UGC 1767. It is classified as an irregular Magellanic type galaxy by NED though the one note at NED calls it a disrupted spiral. It looks almost like two spirals, one above the other both of which have been disrupted by the interaction, the lower smaller one more torn up. I couldn't find that anyone had really studied this or any other galaxy in the image. I measure its size at just under 80,000 light-years.

The third member of the WBL 068 group is UGC 01772 with the listing as possibly an irregular galaxy. The one note at NED says: "Blue very blue main body 0.50 x 0.45, extremely diffuse outskirts, no evidence of spiral structure." To me, it looks much like a three armed spiral. It has an obvious red core and blue arms that spiral out. Again these aren't seen in the POSS images very well. If that's what was looked at, I find little in the way of images of any part of this field but survey images, that may explain this note. I measure its size at 55,000 light-years.

The fourth galaxy of any note in the right side of the image is UGC 1771 a very low surface brightness spiral. So low it didn't show in my framing image enough for me to notice it. It is not classified at NED though certainly shows a faint spiral structure and well defined elongated core that may indicate it is a barred spiral. I'd need many more hours of exposure time to see much more. Redshift puts it at 190,000 light-years. So it may not be a physical member of the two with redshift data. Due to how its edges fade away my measurement of its size is pretty fuzzy at 75,000 light-years. I suspect a longer exposure would show it larger than that. I define the edge as where the ADU count reaches 15 above average background using a median 3 pixel filter to smooth out differences in both object and background, in case you are curious.

On the eastern side of the image are two of the three galaxies in WBL 068. UGC 01787 is the first member of the group which is listed at 280 million light-years. It is an Sd galaxy of the Magellanic type, meaning messed up. That is likely due to its companion on its east end. Both have virtually the same redshift so are likely an interacting pair. Unfortunately, the main galaxy is seen mostly edge on so hard to make out exactly what it looks like. The overlap with the companion makes measuring its size impossible as the eastern end appears hidden behind the companion. Assuming the eastern side is symmetrical to the western (likely untrue if these are an interacting pair) I get a size of 76,000 light-years. The second member of the WBL 068 group is the edge on NGC 891 look-a-like, UGC 1793. It is listed as an Scd: spiral. It too is about 76,000 light-years across. The third member lies well east of the edge of my field. No way I could catch it and still get UGC 1767 which was my main target. It doesn't look all that interesting on the POSS plates but then neither did those in the WBL 067 group. Maybe next year I can check to see if it is worth adding to the object list.

Nothing else is listed with redshift data. In fact, the remaining galaxies that have any size at all to them are not even in NED as galaxies, just as objects seen by the GALEX UV satellite. As such they are listed by coordinates with no data, not even a magnitude. I didn't bother annotating them. For the constellation with likely the most famous galaxy of them all, besides our own, a surprisingly few have any data on them but for the major ones.

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Related Designations for UGC01767

UGC02023

UGC 2023 is a very faint irregular galaxy in eastern Triangulum. Its distance is rather vague. Redshift says 17 million light-years while Tully Fisher says almost twice that, 33 million light-years. I don't trust such close redshift values so will say the larger value is likely closer to being correct but the error bar is quite high. NED classes it as Im?

When I was researching NGC 925 which lies about 1.25 degrees west I found it too had a redshift of about the same as UGC 2023 and was listed with widely varying distances centering on about 30 million light-years. Yet there were several others with similar redshifts arguing for half that distance. As I mentioned with NGC 925 neither seem to have the resolution I'd expect for the closer distance. Still, the common redshift would at least indicate they are likely part of a group. The group may just be moving as a unit away from us more slowly than expansion redshift alone would be.

I needed much more time to really do this one justice. It is unusually low surface brightness so darned faint. NGC 925 is also considered a low surface brightness galaxy, spiral rather than irregular. I've not looked into the others in the group.

NED has no redshift for any other galaxy in the field. This is a little studied area. There's an interesting very flat galaxy to the north-northeast of UGC 2023 that's quite blue. It's not listed in NED. It points down and to the left toward what appears to be a string of very distant galaxies, likely a cluster following the line started by the flat galaxy and ending with a red S0 looking rather "bright" galaxy, at least bright for this field. I found nothing on the distant galaxies. The red galaxy is 2MASX J02340198+3332226 but it doesn't even have a magnitude estimate or anything else useful.

I am a bit puzzled by an odd star in the upper left quadrant. It has a very unusual red ring around it. I've had some deep red stars have red halos but this is an H alpha red, very different from the red halo I occasionally see around red stars due to seeing issues. The star is TYC 2328-1008-1 with a B-V of 0.55. That's a rather white star (our sun is 0.66), far from red like the halo. It is listed in SIMBAD at a V magnitude of 12.43. My quick and dirty measurement says 12.44 while The Sky says it is 11.4. I can't explain why The Sky and SIMBAD don't agree but this is very common. In any case, with my magnitude and SIMBAD's the same, it would seem nothing odd is going on so what is it with the red halo? I can't find any color images of the area. The POSS 2 plates do show it a bit brighter in red than blue light but I see no sign of that odd halo I picked up. Could be just dirt on a surface I suppose. I want to retake the color data this year (taken September 30, 2011) and see if it reappears. So far the weather hasn't cooperated.

The entire field seems to have a faint hint of galactic cirrus. I've picked it up in other images in this area.

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Related Designations for UGC02023

UGC02411

FGC 0364/RFGC 0634/2MFGC 02411 is a flat "ghost" galaxy in northeastern Cassiopeia about 110 million light-years distant. NED classifies it as Sdm. Assuming that is its distance it is some 140,000 light-years in diameter. Now that is a big spiral. Yet it is exceedingly faint, almost ghost-like for an edge on spiral. There's a lot of IFN throughout the field but I can't imagine it is dimming the galaxy to any great extent. But just looking through the disk of the galaxy to see this one is likely dimming all distant galaxies including this one. Still, this may be what a low surface brightness galaxy looks like seen edge on. There's no obvious dust lane nor core region to this galaxy. Just a very thin disk of a size sufficient to make three flat galaxy catalogs. It is also known as UGC 2411 and PGC 011282. It is listed as a radio source, HIJASS J0258+75, so must harbor some activity making it a radio strong galaxy.

It is the only galaxy in the field with a known redshift or even a magnitude estimate. Therefore I didn't bother to include an annotated image. In fact, there's little else of interest in this rather lonely part of the sky. Transparency was poor when I took this image and the sky very bright with a low level aurora. That limited the IFN I was able to pick up. I tried for more data but the sky gods had other ideas. The data from several other nights was so bad I didn't even save it. Someone with better skies should be able to do a much better job on the IFN as well as the galaxy. I have it on the reshoot list but we all know that a reshoot is highly unlikely as I have far too many objects still waiting their first attempt at my capturing their photons.

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

Related Designations for UGC02411

UGC02773

UGC 2773 is a Maffei galaxy in Perseus at the south end of the Alpha Persei Star Cluster, Melotte 20. Several of its bright stars were just out of the image to the north sending huge gradients and arcs of light through the image making it a processing nightmare. Redshift puts it 4 million light-years distant but isn't likely correct. A single Tully-Fisher measurement put it 14 million light-years distant a more reasonable figure for a galaxy in the Maffei group. NED classifies it as a dwarf irregular galaxy though in my image there seems to be some hint of a spiral structure. That may be due to seeing it through dust in our galaxy as it is heavily obscured. Many sources consider it a double system.

The UGC says of it in 1973; "Core 0.15x0.15 with companion 0.15x0.15 attached to preceding side. Irregular disk, no evidence of spiral pattern" Another paper from 2002 asks: "One irregular galaxy?" I can't say I see a double structure though there is a white star near its core with the real core 9" to the northwest (preceding). NED also seems to indicate it is a double system one place and a pair another under morphology. This shows the difficulty of seeing something through all the dust and gunk of our galaxy as this one is deep in the "Zone of Avoidance". What appears to be a rather bright HII region is near the southeastern edge. HST images taken in 1999 don't show a double system that I can see though they do resolve several clouds of HII besides the one I picked up. Though it shows no hint of spiral structure. A super nova was seen near its core in 2009.

I found a rather strange looking something in the image near the left edge toward the top. I've included it as an inset it the cropped version of UGC 2773. It appears as a rather long streak near a somewhat bright star. An obvious red galaxy is seen above it. Since it appears in all my subs I knew it wasn't a fuzzy asteroid trail. Unfortunately this field is poorly studied with only 2MASS galaxies and a few galaxies from the Zone Of Avoidance Catalog listed at NED. The red galaxy is 2MASX J03331917+4749545. The only other object NED shows in the area is ZOAG G148.96-06.70. Its position is below the streak by several seconds of arc. It's error circle is 75 seconds of arc across so includes the 2MASS galaxy as well as a few other smudges. I've included a Sloan image of the streak. It must be an edge on galaxy but if so it sure is distorted. Is the distortion due to seeing it through the dust of our galaxy or is it really that distorted? In any case it is strange looking. I checked the WISE IR images and Spitzer IR images. Neither show it at all much to my surprise.

No other galaxy has any redshift data so no annotated image was prepared.

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

Related Designations for UGC02773

UGC02885

UGC 2885 is a huge spiral classed as SA(rs)c. That much is obvious. After that things get murky. First link at Google says it is the largest known spiral at over 800 thousand light-years (250 kpc)! Yikes. I found this repeated several places including Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UGC_2885 . But as I dug deeper things became rather confused. NED shows a redshift of 5800 kms. Same as sites saying 800 thousand light-years gives. That puts it about 260 million light-years distant. They give its diameter as 3.9 minutes. Doing the math that gives a size 300 thousand light-years! Even using their distance of 313 million light-years the size is 355,000 light-years. Their own figures don't work.

Another site (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1985A%26A...146..213R) says the distance is 118 Mpc (384 million light-years) but this uses an old now disproved Hubble constant. Using this inflated distance they put it at 80 kpc (260 thousand light-years) radius or 520 thousand in diameter. Adjust this for the currently accepted distance of 260 million light-years and the size is 350 thousand light-years. We seem to have the incredible shrinking galaxy here. This agrees with my size estimate of 4.8' using the longest radius in my image when stretched far more than in the attached image. In kpc, the diameter is about 110 kpc (360,000 light-years). Very large but not the humungous galaxy often quoted. In any case, it is still a monster spiral. Is it the largest known? That I can't say. It is as large or larger than any I know of. Some ellipticals are larger, however.

The field is heavily obscured, at least 1 magnitude. So is it larger than we can see because of this? I checked radio and IR references. Radio and IR see it about the same as my image so while obscured we are seeing the majority of the galaxy.

These sites also make claims the galaxy has rotated 12, 10, 8 and 5 times (various papers I found). These assume the galaxy has been around since the beginning of the universe. Some of the difference in estimates has to do with the accepted value for Hubble time at the date of the paper's publication but it can't begin to explain the wide variation given. To compare our sun, if it and our galaxy had existed for the 13.7 billion years of the universe. It would have rotated over 60 times.

This galaxy is also trotted out by supporters of MOND an alternate gravity theory used to deny dark energy. How much their argument relies on the overestimate of its size I don't know. But all start out touting its super large size so I suspect it is important to their argument. I have to admit I got lost in their papers so this might be an incorrect assumption.

The weirdness doesn't stop there. For some unexplained reason, NED has the wrong coordinates for this galaxy. A case of close but no cigar. There is a very bright orange star at the northeast end of the densest part of its disk. Between it and the actual core are two fainter stars. the lower bluer. This one is at the exact position NED shows for the galaxy! At the position of the core, they show [WGB2006] 034948+35270_a with no size or magnitude data. Other than the size being slightly small for their misplaced UGC 2885 everything else seems reasonable. Likely they interchanged these two objects. So is that blue star really a galaxy? I doubt it. The PSF matches similarly bright stars. A minor error but considering what I'd already found it rather surprised me that the errors continue.

Off the southwest end of the galaxy is LEDA 213253/2MASX J03525142+3534301 an IR rich galaxy. It shares a similar redshift value to UGC 2885 so is likely related. While there are 12 other identified galaxies in my field at NED all from the 2MASS IR catalog, none with much information so I didn't bother with an annotated image.

Some of the dust that obscures the galaxy is seen as a slight bluish glow on the right side of the image. On the right edge is a reddish streak coming in to a small galaxy. This caused by a star off the frame hitting something in the camera and reflecting in to the field. A blue star does the same from the top edge of my image.

The asteroid at the bottom of my image well left of center is (27704) 1984 WB4 at magnitude 16.7. The green frame was taken after it moved out of the field.

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Related Designations for UGC02885

UGC03422

UGC 3422 and UGC 3426 are a rather odd couple of galaxies in central Camelopardalis. Redshift puts them about 190 million light-years from us. Tully Fisher measurements for UGC 3422 disagree saying it is 275 million light-years from us. This is a large discrepancy. If the closer distance is adopted the galaxy is 165,000 light-years across. This is unusually large for a spiral. Moving it to 275 million light-years makes it 240,000 light-years across. I can't buy that from the looks of this galaxy. Besides, it shares about the same redshift as UGC 3426 which has a Tully Fisher distance of 210 million light-years which is a good agreement. Using the closer distance that galaxy is nearly as large at 125 million light-years if you count the very faint extended halo I see on the FITS that didn't make it through processing. UGC 3322 is SAB(RS)b and 3326 as S0:. The : means there's some uncertainty. It is a Seyfert 2 galaxy so has an active nucleus.

I've identified every galaxy NED had in its database that is in the image. Many of the 2MASS galaxies had no distance data. I need to explain a few things. BLAGN stands for Broad Line Active Galactic Nucleus. Most with that designation have very large redshifts that put them over 9 billion light-years from us. That is the realm of quasars. All are listed primarily as X-ray sources and as an afterthought as a galaxy. Two are very faint and may not survive JPG compression. The rest are quite obvious. Normally I'd not see a galaxy at these distances and those bright enough for me to measure their PSF look like stars and thus quasars to me. I'd consider them a quasar candidate at least. Another designation is NELG (Narrow-Emission-Line Galaxy) which does appear to really be a galaxy lying within my range for galaxies and having the PSF (Point Spread Function) of a typical 3 billion light-year distant galaxy. Lastly, there is one classed as BLLAC which stand for BL Lac Object. These are yet another type of galaxy with an active nucleus that tend to have wide variations in brightness over short periods so were initially thought to be variable stars since no galaxy can vary rapidly. But a very active nucleus that has a jet pointing right at us can vary that fast and that's likely what these are. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BL_Lac_object for more details. NED considers them quasars.

That brings us to two 2MASS objects that I find highly questionable so they are noted with a question mark on the annotated image. Both have a PSF exactly like stars around them. So either they are stars or some sort of galaxy with a very active core and I'm seeing only the point source of this core. I prefer that they are really just stars. There are many IR stars in the 2MASS catalog. Some in this image, the star just 3" NW of BZB J0613+7107, the BL Lac object, is in the 2MASS catalog for example. With so many point sources that are AGNs of one type or another it wouldn't surprise me if these are just misidentified stars. They are noted with a ? in the annotated image. One in the upper right corner the other the lower right corner.

Being so far north this field isn't covered by the Sloan Survey or other popular surveys so many of the identifications come from the BCC2007 catalog. It is the 2007 edition of the Barcons, Carrera, Ceballos catalog of galaxies, stars, galaxy clusters, Quasars and X-ray sources. BZB stands for the BlaZar BLLAC objects catalog of quasars.

This image suffered from severely distorted stars due to horrid seeing, especially on the color frames. I had to do a lot of work to make the stars sort of presentable. This may also be why some of the 2MASS objects seem identical to stars as mentioned above. It seems I'm processing data I probably should have retaken under better conditions the next year. So far things haven't shown a great deal of improvement but for rare nights.

The pair was suggested to me by Sakib Rasool

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Related Designations for UGC03422