NGC2681

NGC 2681 is a rather odd spiral galaxy in Ursa Major some 40 to 50 million light-years distant. NED gives it the very complex classification as (R')SAB(rs)0/a Sy3 while the NGC project says simply Sa. Notes at NED say it has 3 bars and three stellar points in the core all within one kiloparsec (3260) light-years. That would be 13 to 17 pixels in my image but I see no hint of these in my image. Resolution far too low I suspect. It appears to have undergone a starburst in the core similar to that we currently see in M82 but it is long over in this galaxy as it is dated to a billion years ago. Most likely it is due to the influx of dust and gas from a companion it digested. If all those bars and stellar points near the center are any indication it may have feasted several times. Some papers call it a LINER galaxy while others say a Low Luminosity Active Galactic Nucleus galaxy. NED says Seyfert 3. In any case, the black hole it harbors is still feeding at a steady but low level. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001ApJ...551..197C

There's one apparent companion to NGC 2681 in the image; MCG +09-15-039 has about the same redshift. Unfortunately, NED has nothing else on it.

NGC 2681 is a rather small spiral being only about 40,000 light-years across if the 40 million light-year distance is correct and 50,000 light-years across if the 50 million light-year estimate is correct. But MCG +09-15-039 is tiny at 9300 light-years across at its 35 million light-year distance. Both these would argue they are further away than their redshift indicates. At the top of the image is a nice spiral at a distance of 760,000 light-years. It is nearly 100,000 light-years across at that distance. That would make it similar in size to our own. Ours would look much the same if there's someone in that galaxy looking back at us.

NGC 2681 was discovered by William Herschel on March 17, 1790. It is in the original H400 observing program. My log entry from April 14, 1985 with my 10" f/5 at up to 100 power on a fair but humid night reads; "Large, round, faint galaxy with a starlike nucleus. Arms evenly faint with no brightening until the point side nucleus is reached." I suspect I was only seeing the inner bright arms rather than large faint outer halo as that would be a large brightness difference before reaching the nucleus. Humidity can limit seeing fainter features like these out arms. One I need to revisit visually.

There are a lot of other galaxies in the image. Those with redshift data are labeled. The few with catalog names other than those that just list its coordinates are also listed by their most common catalog designation. There seems to be a scattering of galaxies at about 960,000 light years across the image. If their redshift is photometrically determined a "p" is placed after the distance. These are usually less reliable than spectroscopic determinations. Several galaxy clusters are noted. Usually, the position is the same as the anchoring "Big Cluster Galaxy" so I made only one annotation work for both. If the position of the cluster's center is different then a line is drawn to that point on the image.

Those objects designated as Ultraviolet Excess Sources (UvES) are all quasar candidates. All seem to have only photometric redshifts available.

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

Related Designations for NGC2681

NGC2683

NGC 2683 is a flocculent galaxy with lots of dust, located in Lynx and only about 20 million light-years away. With a major axis of 9.3', its size would be about 54 thousand light-years. Pretty typical and far smaller than the Milky Way galaxy. Seeing wasn't all that great so I failed to pick up much of the flocculent nature of the galaxy. My poor imaging conditions did a number on the color I'm afraid. I retook the color on three different nights never getting good data but for one blue frame. I ended up using the best two of the other colors. Seems for the last year imaging conditions have been less than poor so this will happen quite a bit.

While there is no official release of a Hubble Space Telescope image of this galaxy an amateur, Nikolaus Sulzenauer, used the data at the Hubble Legacy site to create a great image of this galaxy. Its flocculent nature is very obvious in the image as is the huge halo of stars obscuring the far side of the galaxy. Click on the image for a full-size view.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101011.html

It was discovered by William Herschel on February 5, 1788. It is in the original H400 observing program. My notes from that on April 14, 1985 on a humid night limited me with my 10" f/5 at up to 100x reads; "Edge on galaxy. Gradually brightening toward the center. No nucleus seen. No dark dust lane seen to it is still a very pretty galaxy and should be interesting in any telescope of 6" or larger." It appears I didn't notice the dust on the northwest side of the galaxy. Maybe this was due to limitations due to the humidity dimming the galaxy.

AGC 180805 is the galaxy off its southeast end. At over 800 million light-years it is a very large spiral. NED puts its major axis at 0.81' which works out to be about 194 thousand light-years for its diameter. That is one huge spiral! Probably in the top 0.1% for size (only an estimate so don't quote me on this).

For the annotated image I included a catalog reference for all closer than 1 billion light-years though in many cases this consists only of its j2000 coordinates.

Several galaxy clusters are in the image. All but one has a Bright Cluster Galaxy at its center though oddly its distance never was the same as that listed for the cluster. The difference was well within the error bar of such measurement. Still, I'd think some agreement as to which is the one to use would be reached.

WHL J085318.3+332739 is east of NGC 2683 and only marked as G/GC. It is listed as having only six members at 4.1 or 4.2 billion light-years. No size was given nor was I able to identify any other members of the cluster but for the BCG anchoring it.

GC MaxBCG J133.33978+33.27499 is to the southeast of NGC 2683 at a distance of 1.6 or 1.7 billion light-years. Being closer its BCG is far larger. It is listed as containing 11 members, again with no size. Several other galaxies are noted in the area with a distance of about 1.6 billion light-years. I assume they are members of the group. Being close it would spread out more.

The other two clusters likely refer to the same group. They are in the upper right corner of the image. ZwCl 0848.5+3341 has nothing to mark its center. I've drawn a line to about its center position. I may be off a few pixels. It is listed as having 46 members in a circle 7 minutes in diameter. Its distance is listed a5 4.1 billion light years. While I see faint fuzzies all around this position far more are seen to the north. This brings us to the last cluster.

WHL J085139.0+333112 is located just above and a bit east of the Zwicky cluster. It is listed with 58 members but no diameter. Its distance is listed at 4.0 or 4.2 billion light-years. Neatly boxing in the 4.1 billion light-year value for the Zwicky cluster. It appears to have to BCG but only the southern one has that distinction but the northern one has the coordinates of the cluster (within 1" of arc). I'm confused.

There is one asteroid in the image. It is noted on the annotated image southeast of NGC 2683. The minor planet center lists its estimated magnitude at 19.6 which seems reasonable.

Seeing was poor when this was taken. Lots of detail is fuzzy because of the poor seeing. For this reason, I've not included an enlarged image. I need to reshoot this one under better seeing conditions.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10 RG=2x10x3 B=1x10x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2683

NGC2684

NGC 2684 is a rather non-symmetrical galaxy by the front feet of Ursa Major. Redshift puts it about 140 million light-years distant. It lies among a lot of other galaxies most of which belong to a galaxy cluster much further away. According to The Sky, it is known as the "Pancake Galaxy". Apparently, because it is thought to be extremely flat though it isn't listed in any flat galaxy catalogs and seen face on I don't know how you verify this. It was discovered by William Herschel on March 9, 1788. But isn't in either Herschel 400 list. While the outline of the galaxy is a rather nice oval its brightness falls off rapidly on the southeastern side making it look very lopsided. In fact, the blue star clouds in the arms are missing from this faded part of the galaxy further making it appear dim and lopsided. NED classifies it as S? Usually, that means there's a question whether it is a spiral or not but this is obviously one, I'd say it has a pseudo ring as well. That leaves me wondering what the question is in this case. The NGC project says it is S pec. That I can agree with. Maybe NED is trying to decide if it is peculiar or not. I just don't know.

There are two other NGC galaxies in the image that are double galaxies, NGC 2686 and NGC 2687. They were discovered by R. J. Mitchell on March 11m 1858. Based on redshift the two that comprise NGC 2686 are at quite different distances, 710 million light-years for the large, brighter western member and 320 million light-years for the smaller and fainter eastern galaxy. Things get even more confusing at NED which identifies the western member as the bright cluster galaxy for a galaxy cluster of 22 galaxies which it puts at 1.62 billion light-years. Over twice as far away. The larger distance is the result of a photographic redshift estimate. These usually are fairly good. Maybe not in this case. More confusing my The Sky names the western member as the "Spindle" galaxy. It doesn't look at all like a spindle to me. NED classifies it as E while the NGC Project says C. Now that confuses me. C usually means a compact galaxy. I've not seen that applied to large elliptical galaxies before. Is that a typo?

NGC 2687 is the pair to the northeast. The eastern member is the larger and is also listed as a bright cluster galaxy, I assume in the same cluster as its redshift is similar to that of the eastern member of NGC 2686 at a redshift distance of 670 million light-years. It is listed as S0^ at NED and S at the NGC project Its western companion is rather spindle-like (did The Sky put the label on the wrong galaxy?) but NED had no distance estimate for it. So is it a true companion or not? It shows no indication of interaction so if it is they are a line of sight pair not close enough for long enough for an interaction to be seen.

The next NGC galaxy in the image is NGC 2688 to the southeast of the others. It appears to be a member of the group at about 700 million light-years. NED calls it an Sb galaxy while the NGC project says S0. That's a major disagreement. Looks like Sa to my eye. The last NGC galaxy is NGC 2689. NED doesn't classify it but Seligman says S0. It too appears part of the galaxy group. These were also discovered by R. J. Mitchell on the same night as when he found 2686 and 2687. NED says it and the others were found by the Earl of Rosse. He did take credit for the discovery but it was made by his assistant R. J. Mitchel. The good Earl took credit for a lot of work done by his assistants. He did make the discovery possible so gets that credit but I prefer to go with the assistant that actually found it.

Several other apparent galaxy clusters can be seen in the image though I find little on them. Near the top of the image is a rather white F5 star. It has lots of galaxies around it. One is listed as the position of a 9 member galaxy cluster at 2.17 billion light-years, again using photographic redshift, Again confusion sets in as below it NED lists a bright cluster galaxy at a distance of 1.51 billion light-years. Same cluster or a different one? Then below this star and to its right are a bunch of very faint and likely very distant galaxies. Due to cloud issues, I didn't get enough color data to color them so they come through white. NED lists some of them but none with distance data nor any indication of a cluster they may belong to.

The image has a few quasar candidates, all with photographic redshift measurements that NED labels as Ultraviolet Excess Objects. NED indicates these are likely quasars but is apparently awaiting actual spectroscopic data before making this official. Sometimes photographic redshift can be misleading so this is a good idea.

One rather strange galaxy I found nothing on is SDSS J085520.49+490712.4 to the east of NGC 2688. It has two very elongated plumes or arms. The western one short and bright and the eastern one long and faint. Likely this is due to an interaction with another galaxy. Seeing none around that are disturbed it may be a merger situation. With nothing on it, this is purely a guess.

There are two asteroids in the image. One quite bright and obvious to the northwest of NGC 2684, the other much fainter to the southwest. Normally the color frames are seen against dark sky and barely show if they show at all. In this case, they are big and bright for the bright asteroid. This is due to the horrid sky conditions this was taken under. My sky was very cloudy which gave the asteroids a bright background to color. When I dimmed that to my usual level I left it bright for the color portion of the asteroid trail. In this case, I started with blue but conditions got so bad I stopped taking data for a bit. Then did a meridian flip and decided things were good enough for luminance so did that then just continued on with red and green. Clouds then shut me down. The trail of the 20th magnitude asteroid is more like that of one at 21.5 magnitude showing I was losing about 1.5 magnitudes to the sky this night. The bright asteroid passed right over a star during the last of the blue frame. this resulted in half the star being blue and half its true white color. I changed it back to white so the blue trail appears a bit shorter than the other colors. A blue and white star looked odd so it had to go.

The clouds made for horrid glare circles around the stars, even fainter ones had large halos. I only sort of dealt with them so don't look very closely at the stars. They have the remains of my heavy-handed attempt to control these halos which were different sizes for each color as the cloud conditions changed.

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

Related Designations for NGC2684

NGC2715

NGC 2715 could have made Arp's atlas of peculiar galaxies under the classification of one heavy arm. It is likely related to Arp 225 located about 40 arc minutes to the west-northwest. They both have similar redshifts. Distant interaction in the past with Arp 225 may have created the pulled out heavy arm. NGC 2715 is also unusual in that its arm segments begin right at the core rather than coming off of two main arms. NGC 2715 is located in Camelopardalis west of the tail end of Draco. It was discovered by Alphonse Borrelly sometime in 1871. He was a French astronomer mainly interested in finding comets and asteroids but did find 5 new NGC objects, including this one.

The field contains two Abell galaxy clusters, Abell 719 and Abel 738. Abell 719 is richness class II which means it has 80 to 129 galaxies in a particular limited magnitude range. Morphology III means it has no large galaxy and is without much if any condensation. It is listed as 20 minutes across which means it overlaps the other Abell cluster on the east side of the image, Abell 738. It too is richness class II but is intermediate between morphology group II and III which means it has some larger elliptical galaxies but little condensation except right near these larger galaxies. Its diameter is even larger at 24 minutes. There is a third galaxy cluster in the image NSC J091248+780302. Actually, it is listed as a candidate cluster but with a redshift virtually the same as Abell 0738 and no size I have to think these two refer to the same cluster. Likely the latter refers to the denser center region of Abell 738.

This far north NED has little else on the field. Most of the "major" galaxies in the image aren't even listed at NED and those that are rarely had redshift data. Those that did were just members of the Abell clusters with similar distances. Also, their positions were rather vague making it difficult to tell which of two galaxies were being referred to. I didn't list them in the annotated image. Thus those galaxies I did list were lone galaxies easily identifiable with vague coordinates. The exception was PGC 213564 which was accurately listed in The Sky.

The blue color channel was severely damaged by clouds. Retakes were even worse. I suspect the blue data but am posting this until I can get better data.

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

Related Designations for NGC2715

NGC2718

My target was the face on barred spiral NGC 2718 but serendipity stuck again. Also in the field was UGC 04703 a neat pair of possibly interconnected galaxies in Hydra. Redshift puts NGC 2718 at 190 million light-years and UTC 04703 a bit closer at 180 million light-years. They are obviously tiny in comparison to NGC 2718. I measure it at about 130,000 light-years across. A bit bigger than our galaxy. The southern member of UGC 04703 has a faint plume to the east. Including it but not the apparent bridge between the two galaxies it is 51,000 light-years across but omitting the plumes it is only 16,500 light-years in size. Its companion is only 10,500 light-years in size. The pair spans a distance of 110,000 light-years. Obviously one or both were larger than we seem them now with the stars of one or both strung between the two.

Considering the redshift of both the NGC and UGC galaxies is similar it could be they are related. I found nothing on this, however. NGC 2718 was discovered by William Herschel on March 24, 1786. It isn't in either of the two Herschel 400 programs.

The night I took this image wasn't all that great for transparency. There were clouds in the middle of the luminance exposures that cost me quite a few photons. The asteroid trail on the right edge almost vanishes in the middle due to these clouds. Several other asteroids, besides the two I've annotated are in the frame according to the Minor Planet Center. Most moving very slowly yet they can't be seen in my data at all. Given this, I was totally shocked to see the most distant object identifies by NED as a galaxy with a verified spectroscopic redshift that puts it almost 9 billion light-years distant. Many in the 4 to 6 billion light-year range are annotated. Since most are so faint you will likely have to enlarge the image just to find them I didn't annotate them all. Considering the clouds I'm amazed at how deep this image apparently goes. I did pick up one a bit further away but it's PSF and lack of a verified redshift indicate it could be just an unusually blue star or a quasar. In this case, it definitely is a galaxy.

Also, the image contains what NED labels as NGC 2718A at 17th magnitude so quite bright. It gives it an error circle with a radius of 10 seconds of arc. I've put the label where they say it is but there's nothing there or within 10" of arc of that position brighter than 23rd magnitude. I can't find any other reference to anything named NGC 2718A other than this NED entry.

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

Related Designations for NGC2718

NGC2742

I image rarely seen, usually peculiar galaxies. This one is rarely seen but the only thing peculiar about it is it is very normal with lots of detail yet I imaged it anyway. I did so as I'm working on all H400 galaxies I can from my latitude. Being a classic grand design spiral with a lot of detail I was more than a little surprised to find virtually no images of it on the net. Why such a nearly perfect spiral isn't all over the net surprised me. One paper says of it; "The spiral pattern in NGC 2742 is beautifully regular. It is multi-armed; five crossings of the major axis can be traced on one side and three or four on the other (depending on whether one counts satellite arm fragments as separate arms)." There is a diffuse radio emission to its north. Is it related? I found one paper saying maybe.

Redshift puts it about 65 million light-years from us. Non-redshift measurements put it about 73 million light-years from us. I suspect these are a bit more accurate than redshift as local motion can distort the distance of galaxies this close to us. Still, the difference isn't all that great. It carries two NGC numbers NGC 2742 and NGC 2816. The former is due to William Herschel finding it on March 19, 1790 Later his son John found it. Apparently, he used a different position. In any case, his finding was recorded by Dreyer as NGC 2816. John found it on March 30, 1832. Most refer to it by NGC 2742. It is in the original H400 program. My log entry from that dated April 14, 1985 with my 10" f/5 at 100x on a humid night cutting transparency reads: Small, featureless galaxy. An evenly bright oval only slightly brighter toward the center. Seems more lime 12.5 magnitude not 11 as listed." Sounds like the humidity was more of an issue than I thought. I measure its size as about 64,000 light-years. Rather typical for a spiral of this type.

There is a rather nearby companion, about 40' of an arc to the southeast, out of my frame, NGC 2768. It is about 67 to 68 million light-years away. This would put them less than a million light-years apart if at about the same distance from us. It too was found by William Herschel the same night as he found this galaxy. But being E6 or S0 depending on the source, it isn't nearly as interesting, to me anyway being nearly featureless. It too is in the original H400 program but I've not taken it so won't go into it further until I do.

Transparency wasn't a problem the night this image was taken. I've picked up galaxies past 6 billion light-years distance and 23rd magnitude. Seeing wasn't quite up to the transparency but still better than most nights the last few years. I hope this will continue.

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

Related Designations for NGC2742

NGC2744

NGC 2744 is the strange galaxy in the NGC 2749 galaxy group which is located in Cancer the crab. It certainly is a train wreck of a galaxy. It is often considered a double galaxy. The southern part is also known as LEDA 200248. Is it a separate galaxy or part of the mess that is NGC 2744? Seligman considers it the latter. It is obvious something collided with what was a normal spiral galaxy. Is the southern piece the offending galaxy. If not what happened to the colliding galaxy? I find no other candidates. The north going plume may be stars ripped from the colliding galaxy and the southern blob what is left of it -- or not. I find no studies of star rotation in the main galaxy. If it has digested the colliding galaxy it should show in a study of the motion of the disk stars. But I find this one has been mostly ignored since 1985 with most papers only discussing its visual appearance and debating if the southern part is a companion or not. Until more to the contrary, I vote that the southern blob is likely the remains of a colliding galaxy. I say this as to my eye the north plume passes behind the northern galaxy then reappears below it much brighter and joins the lower blob. If so that shows the lower blob to be the most likely source of the plume, probably showing its path to the train wreck. In any case, it will eventually become part of the galaxy which will likely retain its spiral nature. Like many of the NGC galaxies, it was discovered by William Herschel on March 21, 1784. It isn't in either of the H400 observing programs.

NGC 2747 is a spiral galaxy in the group. It too is about 200 million light-years distant. I find little on it. It was discovered by Albert Marth on March 29, 1865.

NGC 2749 anchors the group. It is listed as being an E2 or E3 galaxy depending on who you listen to. It is about the same distance as NGC 2744. Seen in or through it is an object NED calls a galaxy. It has the same redshift as NGC 2749. So is it really just part of NGC 2749, the tiny core of something it is digesting or possibly a huge globular cluster in it? Somehow Herschel missed this big and bright galaxy. It stayed unnoticed until Heinrich d'Arrest found it on March 5, 1862. How such a big and bright galaxy was overlooked for so long is unknown.

NGC 2752 is the last NGC galaxy in the group. But not a true member if its redshift is right. That puts it twice as distant as the other three NGC galaxies. It is listed as a barred spiral but is seen so edge on details are hard to see. Seen face on I suspect it would be a very good galaxy. Like NGC 2749 it was somehow overlooked by Herschel but also by d'Arrest. It wasn't until March 28, 1864 Albert Marth found it, one day before seeing NGC 2747.

Two other NGC galaxies are just out of my field of view to the south. I was planning on just taking NGC 2744 but the framing shot turned up NGC 2749 and 2752 near the edge of my frame. To better show them I moved the scope west and only slightly south not realizing the other two were just out of the frame.

I've prepared an annotated image showing all that NED has redshift values for.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x10' RGB=2x10, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2744

NGC2748

NGC 2748 is a polar ring spiral galaxy located in Camelopardalis just west of Draco's tail. It is a medium size spiral about 66,000 light-years across assuming its redshift look back time of 69 million years is correct. That agrees very closely to the median value of Tully-Fisher measurements which give 68.5 million light-years for its distance. The polar ring is inferred from the two broad star sprays seen at right angles to the plane of the galaxy's disk. It was discovered by John Herschel on September 2, 1828.

The galaxy is located near the pole and thus in the IFN nebula that fills this area of the sky. My exposure time of only 40 minutes didn't begin to pick up its full extent but does show the brighter patches throughout the image frame especially to the north.

This high declination is little studied except by the 2MASS which doesn't pick up much more than a galaxies position. Thus no other galaxy in the image had any useful data at NED. No annotated image was prepared because of this lack of data.

At least conditions were stable enough I was able to collect one round of data. Due to the IFN, I'd planned on several more but sky conditions conspired to prevent that. I'm lucky to have gotten this much.

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

Related Designations for NGC2748

NGC2750

NGC 2750 is a triangular shaped galaxy about 135 million light-years distant (125 million by a single Tully-Fisher measurement) in northwestern Cancer. It's odd shape and two heavy arms have resulted in it being listed as two or three different galaxies. The bright arm on the west is LEDA 093099 with a distance of 135 million light-years; the two vertical knots in it listed as ASK 523821.0 at 132 million light-years and the long mostly straight arm to the north listed as LEDA 4087828 at 138 million light-years. Since this is a mostly face on spiral it is a bit difficult to explain the three different redshift determinations. If it were tilted it could be due to rotation but this must be due to different error bars in the measurements. For its odd shape, it is simply classed as Sc by all that I checked. It was discovered by William Herschel on March 11, 1785 but rather faint and not in either Herschel 400 observing programs.

The field is full of strangeness. To the north is SDSSCGB 00484 a group of 4 dwarf galaxies sharing the same halo. I found only one distance measurement for this but the error bar on its position was 45" of arc and pointed to empty space just west of the group. Thus I put a question mark by that distance. There's nothing else in the area of the error circle so I think I'm right in doing this.

To the west is UGC 4794. It is a strange looking galaxy that is classified as S? with a spectrum dominated by Wolf Rayet stars and HII emission. Its disk is very faint but it has a strong arm that takes a sudden dogleg west and a core region with three bright areas rather than the normal one. Is it the result of a merger? I found nothing on it to help with its odd shape.

High to the northeast of NGC 2750 is UGC 4774. It is only slightly more distant. It is listed as SBdm. The odd thing about it is the row of bright blue clusters in a line near its northern edge. Linear features like this and the northern arm of NGC 2750 are rare in galaxies and difficult to explain. Again I found nothing to help.

Southeast of NGC 2750 is a double galaxy or two in the same line of sight. Only the fainter northern galaxy had redshift data. It is apparently a dwarf companion to NGC 2750. Its possible companion had no redshift shown so I can't say if this is a true pair or not. They certainly overlap. Not far southwest of these to is another pair. The northern one is starlike and almost lost in the haze of its larger southern companion. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a redshift for either so that is why the question mark. West and a bit south of NGC 2750 brings us to another pair of galaxies, red ones this time, ASK 523824.0 and KIG 0293:[VOV2007]070. The former has a redshift putting it nearly a billion light-years away but the latter had none so I don't know if these two are really related or not. Again that results in a question mark.

The image contains a few quasars including one to the east that is listed as both a galaxy and quasar. Its PSF is that of a galaxy rather than quasar in my image so I listed it first as a galaxy. At only 3 billion light-years seeing a galaxy as fuzzy isn't at all unexpected though usually a quasar so outshines its galaxy the fuzz is lost in the glare.

Transparency was unusually good for this image. About what I was used to before all the gunk of the last two years moved in. Thus I was able to easily pick up galaxies down well past 22nd magnitude. The faintest with redshift listed is just below NGC 2750 at magnitude 22.3. Others I didn't label went past magnitude 23. This also allowed me to again pick up asteroids near 21st magnitude. The image has two of brighter than 18th magnitude and to of 20.8 magnitude. All 7 are detailed in the annotated image.

There's a surprising amount going on in this frame once you start looking more closely at it.

For some reason, I ended up taking an extra blue frame. I left no note. I do that when I suspect something ruined one of the first two frames but in this case, all were equal so I used all three.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RG=2x10' B=3x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2750

NGC2775

NGC 2775 is a flocculent galaxy in southeastern Cancer. Redshift puts it about 76 million light-years distant by redshift and 55 million light-years by a Tully estimate. NED classes it as SA(r)ab AGN? The NGC Project says simply Sa. Other papers have yet other opinions including Sa(r), S0/a. It is a strange galaxy in that the core region is nearly featureless with a star-like point at the core. After a rather evenly bright, featureless disk there's a dust ring followed by flocculent arms. Then another dust ring separates these rings from a featureless outer band that fades away. Longer exposure time would likely trace this area out further but add no detail. The contrast of the galaxy seems very low as if viewed through a mist. Could this be due to a huge spherical halo of stars around it? Seems quite possible but I found nothing much about this in the literature I read. If its distance is about 76 million light-years it is some 110,000 light-years across, a large spiral.

It was discovered by William Herschel on December 19, 1783. It is in the original H400 program. My log from April 14, 1985 with my 10" f/5 on a humid night at up to 100x reads; "large, round galaxy, gradually brighter toward the starlike nucleus." I suspect the humidity prevented me from seeing its full extent.

An odd red object is seen in the middle of the flocculent rings to the southwest. It is listed by the Sloan survey as SDSS J091019.53+070141.2 and at a redshift distance of 82 million light-years. NED lists it as a separate galaxy rather than part of NGC 2775 but gives it a maximum size of 0.04 minutes. This translates to a galaxy of only about 950 light years in size! A dwarf galaxy indeed. The red color in the blue of the flocculent arms certainly would indicate it could be a background (or foreground) dwarf galaxy of old stars. Unusual to see a red dwarf, however. Could the red be due to seeing it through a lot of dust in NGC 2775? Nope turns out there is a much simpler solution. I found this HST image of the galaxy:
http://cseligman.com/text/atlas/ngc2775hst.jpg It is oriented the same as mine. Note it is just a foreground star. Apparently, the redshift comes from NGC 2775's spiral arm, not the object/star. Sometimes the pros get it wrong it would appear.

NGC 2775 has a small companion, NGC 2777 to the northeast. It has a similar redshift to NGC 2775 so likely a true companion. NED classes it as Sab? NGC project says Sb-. Seeing was poor for this image making NGC 2777 look rather odd. Better images show its arms are made of mostly very large star knots. It's these knots that give it the very odd appearance in my low-resolution image. I need to revisit this one under better seeing conditions than the near 4" of this one. Then it would look more like a spiral. If the distance is 83 million light-years it is a dwarf spiral only 15,000 light-years in diameter.

Also in my image is NGC 2773. It has a redshift putting it three times more distant than the other two so it is not related. The distance also makes it hard to see any detail. Both NED and the NGC project class it as S?

North of NGC 2775 is the odd galaxy LEDA 213577. NED has the essential note about it saying: "May be an interacting pair." That certainly appears reasonable. The two parts of this object are very different shades of blue. It has the same redshift as nearby NGC 2777 but even smaller. If two galaxies they are really dwarfs. End to end the object is only 11,000 light-years long at 84 million light-years with the bright blue object being less than 5000 light-years across. These sizes would argue against this being two interacting galaxies. A small dwarf with a large bright star knot at one end may be a more likely explanation. I'd sure like to see a high-resolution image of this one.

There are two objects IXO 32 and IXO 33 that NED shows as a quasar, Xray Source and an AGN. One, south of NGC 2775 has a distance of only 3 billion light-years and is not star-like but shows a disk like other galaxies at this distance. On the other had the other, north of NGC 2775, is over 11 billion light-years distant and is star-like. It is also blue which is rather expected of such objects rather than the slightly red color of the close one that matches typical galaxies at this distance. I can't explain why this difference.

Near the bottom of the image is a very odd looking galaxy at 1.63 billion light-years, 2MASX J09104935+0653231. I put the label well to the right as there's faint fuzz between the label and the core of the galaxy and more fuzz doing up and a bit left of the core. This north piece is far brighter than the one going west. NED gives no clue as to what is going on here. The north going fuzz looks a lot like a faint disk galaxy seen somewhat edge on that has no core as it is rather oval in shape. The west one appears more round. Are these three objects, the result of two interacting galaxies or something else? I haven't a clue but it sure is strange. It appears to be part of a group of galaxies that fall into the 1.63 to 1.66 billion light-year distance range. Though I didn't see any listed at NED. Also, there are quite a few galaxies at about 1.8 to 1.85 million light-years in the image. They would appear to be part of some galaxy group but I didn't find one listed in NED either.

While NED has distance estimates for dozens of galaxies too faint to get through my poor seeing and transparency this night there are galaxies in the image NED doesn't even list. Three of them form an interesting knot inside the north edge of NGC 2775. Are they three interacting galaxies? Not only doesn't NED have any redshift data on any of them, it doesn't list anything at their position though far fainter galaxies (too faint for my image) are listed. I've noted them with a question mark.

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

Related Designations for NGC2775