ARP333

ARP 333/NGC 1024 lies in Ursa Major near the bear's nose. It is classed as (R')SA(r)ab and is about 150 million light years distant. Arp thought it peculiar enough for his catalog due to its extremely thin arms but had no category for this so put it in his Miscellaneous category. ARP 337 (M82) being the most famous member of this class. His comment on Arp 333 reads "Thin circular arms, star in southeast superimposed on wisp."

Inside the faint disk of the galaxy are two short blue arm segments that are extremely thin. I don't know if he is referring to them or the outer edge of the disk. The star at the southeast end that obscures the "wisp" is a pain. While only the wisp is obvious in his image, mine shows quite a bit more in this area. Is it the remains of a partly cannibalized dwarf? I find nothing on it. If you compare my image to Arp's at this star you will note a small reddish condensation just above the star in my image that is missing from Arp's image. This bothered me at first. Then I checked the DSS 2 red and blue plates. Arp used film very similar (grainier) that was used for the DSS images using a blue sensitive emulsion but imaging through a yellow filter much of the time. This tended to neutralize the color to better match a true spectral image for visual light. But it does eliminate red objects. Sure enough, the object is missing on the blue plate and present on the red. So its absence from Arp's image is easily explained by his emulsion choice. So much for my "supernova" discovery. NGC 1024 was discovered by William Herschel on September 18, 1786 but isn't in either H400 observing program.

Unfortunately, this one is outside the SDSS coverage so there's not much information on this area. With the two galaxies to its east, it forms a three galaxy group; WBL 082/KTG 09. The little northern spiral is NGC 1028 classes Sa by NED and SB at the NGC Project. It looks barred to me so I doubt the Sa classification. Its arm structure is very odd and non-symmetrical. To me, it is more deserving of an entry in Arp's atlas than NGC 1024. The redshift distance of 380 million light-years is quite at odds to its non-redshift estimate of 250 million light-years. The lower is NGC 1029 classed as S0/a by both NED and the NGC Project. Both were discovered by Albert Marth on October 1, 1864.

Now while these three are considered a group NGC 1028 is small because it over twice as far away as the other two at 380 million light-years. Thus it is only a line of sight group member. It looks like it could have been included in Arp's One Heavy Arm category.

While there are other sizable galaxies in the image I find redshift data on only two others. One is the edge on the spiral southwest of Arp 333. It is FGC 0326 (Flat Galaxy Catalog) classed as Sd and is about 350 million light years distant. So another background galaxy as its angular size would indicate. The other is southwest of NGC 1029 and southeast of Arp 333 on a line through the major axis of Arp 333. It is a small (in angular size) reddish spiral. Like all the other identified galaxies in the image but without distance data it is from the 2MASS survey, 2MASX J02392466+1045321. It lies twice as distance yet again at about 750 million light years. I find no classification on it. There appears to be another "flat" galaxy just west of NGC 1029. I couldn't find it listed at NED though the very red starlike galaxy between it and NGC 1029 was listed as 2MASX J02393145+1047331.

Arp's image with the 200" Hale Telescope
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp333.jpeg

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP333

ARP334

ARP 334 is located in the constellation of Canes Venatici at about 340 million light-years. Arp put it in his Miscellaneous class. His note gives no mention of why he thought it worthy of his atlas. His note simply notes that the second star to the south is not quite stellar. That's even more obvious in my image. Arp 334 is otherwise known as UGC 8498 and is classed as Sb at NED. It has some faint tidal spray and an apparent hole in its disk in the area of the southern galaxy. Are the two related? Wish I knew. The nearly stellar galaxy is SDSS J133025.68+313617.6. But the survey didn't take any redshift data on it so no way to know its approximate distance. Something apparently disturbed Arp 334 and it is as good a candidate for the mugging as any in the area.

There are several small galaxy clusters in the image and one huge one. The huge one is Abell 1752 which is labeled at the top left of my image. The label marks the center. It is listed as having a diameter of 52 minutes so would cover much of my image. No galaxy count or distance is given. The most obvious galaxy cluster in the image is GHO 1328+3157 a cluster of 24 galaxies with a distance of 2.6 billion light-years. I've marked its center as GC followed by its distance. Note the center seems a bit southwest of the core region and the anchor galaxy. The Kanipe-Webb book on the Arp Atlas considers this group part of Abell 1752.

The galaxy that appears to be in the densest part of the GHO 1328+3157 galaxy cluster is 2MASX J13302928+3141354. It is listed as a Bright Cluster Galaxy rather than cD. Also, its redshift seems to put it somewhat further away than the listed distance to the cluster. NED shows a redshift that puts it 3.1 billion light years distant, about a half billion further than the cluster estimate. That seems a large discrepancy. Maybe the estimated cluster distance has a problem. The galaxy is the reddest I can recall imaging.

To the southwest of Arp 334 is the galaxy cluster candidate, NSC J133008+313012 at 2.4 billion light years. No size is given. It has the label GCC marking its center position.

Another candidate cluster, this time at 2.6 billion light years is located north and a bit east of Arp 334. Again, the label GCC marks its center coordinates.

Yet another galaxy cluster is shown at NED due west of Arp 334. It is NSCS J132936+313646 and has no distance, size or diameter given. There appears to be a small tight group of galaxies just east of the position. I'd cover up the galaxies if the label were centered on the center so it is immediately west of the label in this case which reads simply "GC ?" due to no distance being given.

On the eastern edge of my image just below center is a galaxy and galaxy cluster with the same coordinates. The cluster is MaxBCG J202.95428+31.57728 and is listed at 2.6 billion light-years while the "Bright Cluster Galaxy" is 2MASX J13314900+3134377 at 2.5 billion light-years. That position is marked with "G/GC" for the label.

While looking up information for my annotated image I again came across a galaxy, not in NED. It is southwest of Arp 334 and is marked by a "?" Just above it is a fainter galaxy. That one is SDSS J133006.12+312859.0 with no distance given. The third object is a star. So why is the fainter galaxy included but not the brighter? I keep running across these. Many more probably exist in the image, just that this one happened to interest me so looked it up specifically and found it wasn't there. I suppose with the millions of SDSS galaxies cataloged it isn't surprising a few get lost.

Arp's image with south up is at:
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp334.jpeg

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP334

ARP335

ARP 335 (NGC 3509) is a possible double galaxy that Arp put in his Miscellaneous category, M82 being the well-known galaxy in this classification. Looks to me it would have fit in his one heavy arm class. Ned and some other sources consider it a double galaxy. I thought maybe the other galaxy was the reddened blob directly north of the obvious nucleus. But its position isn't recorded as a separate galaxy in NED that I could find. Turns out that on the inside edge of the heavy arm there's a blue blob I considered a star cloud in the arm but most sources list it as a "galaxy within the bounds of NGC 3509." Whatever it is, I marked it in the ID image with its distance of 0.37 billion light-years, same as Arp 335. What about the two I have marked as KPG 265A and B? Well, it seems the Kanipe-Webb book on the Arp galaxies notes them in their book. NED says of 265B that it is the southern component of the double galaxy. But NED lists no northern component unless they consider that the main galaxy. NED says most of the parts it lists inside the galaxy are just parts of the same galaxy. Apparently, that included KPG265A. I've marked its NED position. Problem is the Kanipe Webb book shows KPG265A where NED has KPG265B and shows the orange blob I've marked with a question mark as KPG265B. So who is right? I have no idea. Maybe it is three galaxies. The obvious core defining one, 265B defining one that streams west from the bright knots and a third whose core is the orange blob and streams east creating the huge arm? Guess this is why Arp put it in his miscellaneous category. His only comment is: "Large luminous system."

NED classifies Arp 335 as SA9(s)bc pec. As mentioned it is about 370 million light-years distant. To appear so large at that distance it must be a huge galaxy and it is. I measure it as being 250,000 light-years across even without a southwestern arm like the northeastern arm.

Arp 335 is located in southern Leo. The image was taken in late January. Since I was making an annotated image to mark the various parts of Arp 335 I went on to list all galaxies NED had redshift data on as well as the position of several galaxy clusters.

In doing this I found two very blue galaxies (marked with ?) that the Sloan survey, as well as all others, seem to have overlooked. At least I found them in no catalog, I didn't check the Mitchell Anonymous Catalog however as it doesn't have any useful data. I've found similar uncatalogued blue galaxies in fields covered in detail by Sloan. There has to be some selection effect here but I don't know what it is. Since this was first written the SDSS has included these two, possibly due to my request about them. The western one is now listed as SDSS J110406.4+044955.5 at about the same redshift as Arp 334 making it about 36,000 light-years long. The eastern one is SDSS J110508.53+044919.8 and a bit closer at 320 million light-years and 34,000 light-years across.

The galaxy clusters are marked with GC. Some have lines that show the exact center as defined by NED. In other cases, the center is the center of the label itself. I only used the line when that would have covered up objects that might be of interest. You'll note that there's nothing there in every case but one. At the top left a cluster at 3 billion light-years has the exact same coordinates as a galaxy at 2.9 billion light-years. It may be the anchor of the cluster. The only cluster that I may see members of is the one to the upper right of Arp 335 listed as being 4.4 billion light-years away. While there's nothing at that exact position there is a bunch of faint distant galaxies below that position. Not marked is a Zwicky cluster listed as being the size of my image located at the right center edge of my image and containing 120 members. It is so vague I have no idea what it includes but it covers half of my image at least.

Note that there are a few galaxies at 0.91 billion light-years, another group at 0.37 that extends off my frame both north and south, There's a triad of galaxies at 1.7 billion light-years near the right edge.

Arp's image:
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp335.jpeg
SDSS image:
http://astronomerica.awardspace.com/SDSS-25/NGC3509.php

The HST hasn't released a color image and I only found UV and IR images in their data base. The UV image barely shows the "red blob" though it shows well in IR so I used that to make a very noisy black and white image. Note the blob appears to be a background galaxy and the knots below the core of Arp 335 seem to be star clouds but could be the remains of a galaxy it is "digesting".

So three images, main image, annotated image and HST image.

14" LX200R @ F/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP335

ARP336

Arp 336/NGC 2685 is an example of a polar ring galaxy though that's hard to tell from its classification as (R)SB0+ pec. It is probably the result of the merger of two spiral galaxies that were oriented at right angles to each other, one winding up around the other. This is a very nearby object, being only about 45 million light-years away. It is sometimes called the Helix Galaxy as the remains of one of the spiral galaxies seem to spiral around the other galaxy. Where the helix structure passes in front of the other galaxy it is seen as a dark feature but where it is away from the other galaxy it is a bright feature. It is also known as NGC 2685 and is classed by Arp under his "Miscellaneous" category. This is for those few he cataloged that were one of a kind. At least as far as the 200" Palomar telescope could see at the time. There is another famous polar ring galaxy but it is too far south so wasn't on the survey plates Arp used to make his catalog. Hubble took a famous image of it ( https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9916a/ ) but I can't find one of Arp 336 other than a raw image. I find that surprising. A photo from Kitt Peak is at:
http://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/html/im0851.html
HST raw data: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_2685#/media/File:NGC2685-hst-R814G555B450.jpg

One note in NED says:
"NGC 2685 is perhaps the most unusual galaxy in the Shapley-Ames catalog. There are two axes of symmetry for the projected image; most galaxies have only one. The central, amorphous spindle resembles a normal S01 seen on edge. However, helical filaments surround the spindle. Because of projection effects, it is impossible to tell whether these filaments form complete circles around the spindle or whether they start somewhere on the spindle and spiral outward at right angles to its axis. The filaments are seen in absorption when they pass in front of the bright background, but they are luminous when they are not silhouetted. Note how the entire north-east end of the spindle is covered with the projected absorption lanes of the helix. A luminous external ring around the entire structure may be either a true ring or a complete shell seen in projection. Many questions are unanswered about this galaxy. Is the central feature a spheroid (with two axes equal as in a plate or pancake), or is it an ellipsoid like a cigar? What is the direction of the angular momentum vector? Is the external ring attached to the central regions, or is it separate?"

The blue blob of a galaxy off the bottom left of Arp 336 is SDSS J085530.07+584117.3. The spiral near the bottom is MCG +10-13-035. I find no redshift data on either or any other galaxies in my image. Arp 336 is located in Ursa Major under the bear's chin.

Arp's photo with the 200" scope is at:
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp336.jpeg

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP336

ARP337

Sometime, probably after January 11 and before January 19, the light of a type 1A supernova in the starburst galaxy M82 hit the earth. It wasn't "discovered" until the night of January 21 in England. A group of students got an unexpected introduction to what to do when an event such as this is first seen. You can read about it at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/maps-faculty/maps-news-publication/maps1405. I've seen images taken as early as January 19 that show it but those taking the images didn't realize what they had or didn't look at the data until days later. Earlier images likely exist. These are referred to as pre-discovery images. I first heard of it on the 22nd but it was cloudy. It sort of cleared Wednesday night, the 23rd of January (all times and dates are UT, not local time). I had rather poor seeing but took what data I could prior to moonrise. The temperature here was running down around -35°C when I started and dropped 3 more degrees while I was taking the data which meant my image scale changed adding to my processing steps. My red data was taken when the moon was brightening the sky though not yet risen.

Starburst activity creates many short-lived massive stars that go supernova after only a few million years of life. Such supernovas are called type II supernovae. So you'd expect such a massive star's death to be the cause of the supernova. But, just to be contrary I suppose, this is a type 1a which is caused by the sudden destruction of one or maybe 2 white dwarf stars. White dwarf stars are much less massive stars and live at least a billion years or longer. So the star or stars that caused this supernova predate the starburst activity in M82. Such supernovae are thought to be standard candles so if you know the apparent brightness as well as how much dust and gas between us and the supernova dims the light the distance to the supernova can be calculated. Thus this supernova might help better determine the distance to M82 which is currently put at about 12 million light-years. The problem is the light of a fresh type 1a supernova should be blue. This one is somewhat red. Not because the supernova is red but because it went off deep inside the dusty M82's disk. Dust reddens starlight same as it reddens our sunsets and sunrises. This will make estimating the loss to dust and gas rather difficult. I'm sure all sorts of methods of adjusting for this will be tested by this event.

M82 is also Arp 337 so I've added another supernova to my collection of Arp galaxies. A surprising number of them in my collection were caught with supernovas including M51 and M101 and about a half dozen others. I've lost count so need to go back and look that count up. Seems peculiar galaxies that made his list are above average in the number of their supernovas by my rather unscientific survey.

I've made an annotated image showing the surrounding galaxies, galaxy clusters, and quasars. I found this field particularly difficult to work with. Many of the quasars listed in NED, as well as some galaxies, had vague coordinates. Often there was nothing close to the right magnitude within the error circle or even well beyond the error circle. Rather than guess I didn't include these vague positioned objects. Even when I could identify the object it was sometimes listed as both a quasar and a galaxy yet of typical galaxy distance and sometimes showing a slight disk rather than the point source of a quasar. I listed these as both Q and G often with a question mark. NED usually preferred the quasar designation even when a small disk is seen. While NED listed about twice as many galaxy clusters as I show I only listed those with a Big Cluster Galaxy listed in NED such that I could pin down its location. Some used photographic redshift, designated with a p after the light travel time figure, for the cluster but spectroscopic redshift for the BCG. The latter is likely more accurate though in these cases they were in rather close agreement. Many times I find a wide difference but not with these.

The supernova is expected to continue to brighten for a week or maybe longer. Due to the extensive light of the galaxy around it, I was unable to get a good magnitude estimate. There are tricks for adjusting for this but I didn't take the time for them. Most estimates put it at about magnitude 11 or a bit brighter. It might reach 8th magnitude by some predictions. Time will tell if those predictions come true.

M82 was discovered by Johann Bode on December 31, 1774 the same night as he found M81. Like M81 Koehler may have seen it sometime between 1772 and 1778 but didn't record it until 1779. Pierre Méchain then saw it in August 1780 and likely reported it to Messier who observed and recorded it on February 9, 1781. William Herschel then observed it on September 30, 1802. It is in the original Herschel 400 Observing Program. My notes from April 15, 1985 on a humid night with my 10" f/5 Cave Newtonian at up to 150x reads: "Bright large streak with an even brighter central core. It can even be seen in my 8x50 finder on this rather low transparency night. Several dark lanes are seen near the core. It takes high power well though, this night I'm limited to 150x due to low transparency."

For more on M82 see: http://messier.seds.org/m/m082.html

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

Related Designations for ARP337

BARNARD012

Barnard 12/LDN 1407 is a dark nebula in southern Camelopardalis that just fits my field of view. While it blocks background stars quite well it doesn't seem any darker than the general sky. Though seems to have some blue haze not seen in the otherwise slightly red background. I found two different distance for it, 550 and 650 light-years.

A wider field of view will pick up Barnard 11 and 13 and maybe 9 to the north that I've not yet taken. Maybe next year I can get them. 11 and 9 need a larger field than I have, however.

This image is reproduced at 1.5" per pixel rather than my usual 1" per pixel.

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

Related Designations for BARNARD012

BARNARD023

Barnard 23 is a dark nebula in northern Taurus. I find very little on it. It is listed as being opacity 5 in which 6 is the most opaque. Not in a dense starfield or in front of bright nebulosity it doesn't stand out as strongly as some of his dark nebulae. At the north end is the F0 main sequence star HD 29537. My luminance and blue filters picked up an off-center glow around it. The shape being constant between the filters. I suspect this means it is real and thus a reflection nebula lit by the magnitude 6.8 star. However neither SIMBAD nor any other source I checked list anything but the star at that position. I see it as a similar off center on the blue POSS II plate though it is very dim. If someone else can take this field that doesn't have the glare issues I sometimes have it would help to determine if it is real or not. Since glare patterns are almost always different in the luminance and blue filters and these are the same I left it in as a possibly valid object.

5 asteroids were caught in the image, one moving very slowly at the far right edge. See the annotated image for details.

This image is reproduced at 1.5" per pixel rather than my usual 1" per pixel.

Related Designations for BARNARD023

BARNARD029

Barnard 29 was described by Barnard as "Round; indefinite." It seems quite definite in my image. It appears surrounded by a ring of brighter material which fades away with a somewhat indefinite edge. Though I doubt that is what Barnard was referring to. Could this brighter edge be due to dust thickening before suddenly becoming opaque? Note some very red stars at the very edge of this other type of "Black Hole." It is considered a level 6 dark nebula, the highest opacity category. It certainly is dark. While I stretched the image normally the core of the cluster is nearly black rather than my usual 15 out of 256 levels. The background of unresolved stars that give my background a low light level is obscured by the dust creating the very black void. It really does appear to be a hole in the sky as some early observers believed these molecular clouds to be. I couldn't find a distance for this nebula.

While most Barnard Dark Nebulae are reproduced at 1.5" per pixel, this one is at my normal 1" per pixel resolution.

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

Related Designations for BARNARD029

BARNARD035

GN 05.42.6 is a rather yellow reflection nebula around the pre-main sequence star FU Orionis. The star is spectral type G3Iav so is a mostly white star with a tinge of yellow. Apparently, its light is further reddened by dust to make the reflection nebula very yellow to red in color. The complex is buried in the large arc-shaped cloud Barnard 35. My FOV, when centered on FU Orionis, missed much of the arc's northern part but does capture the apex of the arc's far western extent. Some claim the cloud is shaped by Lamda Orionis about 2.5 degrees to the west. I find Lamda to be about 1055 light-years from us by Hipparcos data. That would put the nebula over 40 light-years from it at a minimum. O8 stars are powerful but are they that powerful? Maybe as there seems to be nothing else closer with the energy to do the trick and the H alpha emission is on the Lamda side. The H alpha nebula is also known as CED 59.

The arc itself is LBN 878 best I can determine. The dark clouds at the apex may be LDN 1594. Since Barnard nebulae are dark I'm not sure what his entry refers to. Its published coordinates 05h 45.5m +09°03' points to a rather bright area two minutes southeast of FU Orionis.

FU Orionis shined at magnitude 16.5 for most of telescopic history. Then in 1937 it suddenly brightened to magnitude 9.5. Since then it has slowly brightened to 8.99. I found nothing on the reflection nebula. I don't know if it existed before the brightening or not. I'll assume it likely wasn't visible. It might be a 1937 version of McNeil's Nebula. That appeared at the same time as its illuminating star. The nebulae around FU Orionis stars tend to be variable. I've not revisited this one to see if it has changed. Looking at the POSS plates from decades ago I see no obvious change so suspect this one is currently rather stable.

Conditions were very poor the night I took this image. The color data was very hard hit, especially the red frames. While the color of FU Orionis is a good match to its spectral type the faint nebulosity was down in the noise level due to clouds so highly suspect. I need to revisit this one. Preferably with a scope that can capture more of the arc.

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

Related Designations for BARNARD035

BARNARD072

Barnard 72, the Snake or S nebula, is likely the second most famous Barnard dark nebula after B33 the Horsehead Nebula. It is listed as opacity class 6, the most obscured level. Though that appears to apply only to patches of it. Unfortunately at -23 degrees it lies somewhat below my observatory wall. Seeing this low is terrible. Between these two issues, I never attempted it before. But we had a night of horrid transparency but super seeing. Unfortunately, all my targets were faint and not coming through the gunk. I seem to have a corollary to the uncertainty principle that says the better the seeing the worse the transparency. In this case, severe smoke from Canadian fires 1000 km away was blanking the sky. It was sucking all blue as well but made for great seeing. Thus I decided to give B72 a chance as nothing else I needed was possible. Also, low in the southern sky, the smoke was much thinner yet seeing still good. Well, as good as possible this low in the sky with part of my objective blocked by the observatory wall.

When I started taking red data the observatory wall blocked well over 67% the objective. By the end of the blue data, I was only about 33% obstructed. This helped counteract the blue lost to smoke. Still, color balance across the image varied greatly depending on smoke clouds. Thus the color is so highly suspect I probably should have done this only in luminance. By the time the luminance was taken due to the angle the observatory sits the objective obstruction went from about 33% to about 10% just as it went into the Meridian Tree. So between the smoke and observatory wall, I'm surprised I got anything. I knew it was bad but didn't check it out until the light of day to see what the obstruction was looking in an eyepiece port via a flip mirror. I was rather horrified by the extent of the obstruction. I'm glad I'd already looked at the subs as otherwise, I'd likely have not given them a look. I'm amazed by what I got even with the obstruction. I did have to do a lot of work to reduce diffraction issues caused by the wall.

While the thousands of Milky Way stars lie mostly a thousand or more light-years from us, the cloud of mostly carbon compounds that make up the part of the nebula blocking starlight is only about 650 light-years distant. Of course, the main ingredient of the cloud is transparent cold hydrogen gas that can be detected only by radio telescopes. The nebula's temperature is near absolute zero which allows parts of it to collapse and form new stars.

One asteroid is in the image toward the left side a bit below the centerline on the right edge of the left side of the dark nebula. It is (3891) Werner. Here's the naming citation:
"(3891) Werner = 1981 EY31
"Named in honor of Robert A. Werner, graduate student in aerospace engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Werner's dissertation work on "Polyhedron Gravitation" has direct application to the problem of calculating orbits around small irregularly shaped objects such as minor planets. For the past eleven years, Werner has also served as the typesetter and producer of the Minor Planet Bulletin, an activity which has fostered scientific interactions on minor planet research between professional and amateur astronomers. Name suggested and citation prepared by R. P. Binzel."

So why did I take such a famous object as the Snake Nebula? For one I was surprised to find I never took it even in my film days except with a 35mm lens on a 35mm SLR camera back in the 1960's as part of a wide field shot of the summer Milky Way. It didn't turn out very good due to lots of green airglow. Many have asked me to take it but I always gave the excuse it was too low. But suddenly there was this super night, best by far of the year. The only part of the sky the smoke allowed me to look at was very low to the south where it was. The smoke soon even covered this part of the sky killing a super night. I spent more time than I should have cleaning it up but I think the effort was worth it.

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

Related Designations for BARNARD072