NGC2776

NGC 2776 is a nice somewhat ragged face on spiral galaxy in Lynx under the front legs of Ursa Major. Redshift puts it at a distance of 130 million light-years while other measurements say it is closer at 91 million light-years. It has a large faint region to the north and another to the south. Including these, I get a size of 141,000 light-years assuming the larger distance and 98,000 if the shorter distance is used. NED classifies it as SAB(rs)c. Are its drawn out, faint arms due to interaction with some other galaxy? I can't find any likely candidate unless it has merged with NGC 2776. Seems possible to me though I didn't find anything in the literature to support this.

The field contains many galaxies, some seen right through the edges of NGC 2776. None seen through the galaxy had redshift data. In fact, most galaxies in the image had no redshift. Those who did are in the annotated image. A couple edge on distant galaxies I wanted to know about didn't have much info but I labeled them anyway.

It was discovered on March 19, 1828 by John Herschel, one his dad missed it seems.

In the annotated image CQ stands for candidate quasar. The one above NGC 2776 only has photometric redshift data. This can often just be a star in our galaxy but NED seems to give this one more validity than most so I included it. Normally I omit these. A "p" after the distance indicates it is known to be photometric. An "s" shows NED has verified it is spectroscopic. Those with neither label are unknown. But if the redshift is longer than 4 significant digits it is likely spectroscopic. For more distant galaxies and quasars, I also provide the redshift value as it is a better way to judge distance than a simple redshift look back time distance. The time light travels to reach us gets rather misleading at larger distances since the object was much closer when the light left and much more distant "now" than the redshift look back time. For instance, the galaxy at the top of the image a bit right of NGC 2776 has a look back time distance of 6 billion light-years. But the light left it when it was only 4.66 billion light-years away. Thanks to the expansion of the universe it needed another 1.34 billion years to reach us. Currently, it is 7.66 billion light-years distant but we are seeing it as if it was only 4.66 billion light-years distant not the 6 billion you might expect. As the z value grows so does the differences in these distance estimates. Take the quasar the lower right at a z of 1.304733. It's look back distance is 8.85 billion light-years but the distance when the light left it was 5.72 billion light-years and its "current" distance is 13.18 billion light-years, almost the edge of the universe. By a z of 1.4 it would be further than the age of the universe. The z value allows you to determine these distances using your own values for the universe's constants such as Hubble's constant OmegaM and Omegavac. I used Ho of 70.5, OmegaM of 0.27 and Omegavac of 0.73. You can use more modern values either based on HST images or the cosmologic microwave http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/CosmoCalc.htmlbackground. These give somewhat different values. See http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/CosmoCalc.html for one such calculator.

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

Related Designations for NGC2776

NGC2787

NGC 2787 is a barred spiral in Ursa Major. Redshift puts it about 36 million light-years away though this has a large error bar. NED lists two other distance measurements of 42 million light-years by Tully measurement and 24 million light-years by resolution of Surface Brightness Fluctuations. The HST has taken a great image of the core of this galaxy and uses the 24 million light-year distance. I don't know if this is yet another measurement or they are using the SBF measurement.

The NGC Project classes it as SB(0) while NED says SB(r)0+ LINER. So it has an active core. The HST image shows a lot of fine dust rings around the south side of the core. I didn't resolve the dust rings but do see a hint of their color along the south side of the core. I have no idea if this is due to those bands or just coincidental noise due to my short integration time. The location is correct at least. I see only a hint of the bar other than the bright regions where it joins the ring structure. Its red color indicates star formation has been very low for a very long time so all the blue stars have long since burned out or are hidden behind thick dust.

For more on this one see the HST image and info at http://heritage.stsci.edu/2002/07/index.html . The HST image covers a square of 37 pixels around the core in my image.

NGC 2787 was discovered by William Herschel on December 3, 1788. It is in the original H400 program. My entry from April 27, 1984 with 12.5" f/5 at up to 150x under excellent conditions reads; "Bright starlike nucleus, rapidly dims to a faint glow surrounding it. Appears more circular than Burnham's 2.1'x1.3' dimensions would indicate."

The galaxy to the upper left is UGC 04944. NED has no redshift distance for it so I don't know if it is related to NGC 2787 but rather doubt it is. It is a Scd: spiral seen nearly edge on.

The entire image is bathed in faint galactic cirrus which came as a surprise to me when processing the image. After seeing it on the first night's images I went back the second night to help bring it out. Unfortunately, airglow was much higher so it was not nearly as strong but seeing was better. I combined all 8 frames which helped resolution but hurt the cirrus. I need to retry this on a good night with low airglow. Rarely happens here of late, however.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=8x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2787

NGC2793

NGC 2793 is another galaxy I'm surprised Arp didn't find a place for in his Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies. It certainly is peculiar and quite similar to Arp 6/NGC 2537, the Bear Paw Galaxy, but with "wind effects". He has a category for interacting galaxies he calls "Wind Effects". NGC 2793 certainly appears to have a strong east wind blowing across it creating wispy blue streaks across it. It also is a ring galaxy which he included but again these were interacting galaxies. In fact, ring galaxies like 2793 are usually thought to be the result of a near direct hit on the core of a spiral by a dense "bullet" galaxy. Yet there's no candidate for a "bullet" in this case. I found only a couple papers discussing this. They mention LEDA 082356 as a possible "bullet" saying its redshift is unknown. Turns out it is now known and at nearly 4 times the distance can't be the cause. Neither paper considers the bright core might hide a dense superimposed bullet nor has their apparently been any follow-up studies of this galaxy. I find the rectangular core shape another oddity. Usually, the pushed to the ring the core takes on an arc that matches the ring's arc. It may be this galaxy just naturally looks this way but I find that hard to believe. The ring of star clusters along the edge is hard to explain without some outside force being involved. It was discovered by John Herschel on March 6, 1828.

The long diameter of NGC 2793 measures about 29,000 light-years assuming the 89 million light-year distance. It is located in southeastern Lynx on the northwestern edge of the Abell 779 galaxy cluster. It isn't related to that cluster which is about 320 million light-years distant. It is likely the distant "companion" is an outlying member of the cluster.

The annotated image notes all galaxies in the field for which NED had redshift data. If the galaxy had a name listed in NED other than just one that was its coordinates it is noted. Otherwise, a G denotes a galaxy and Q a quasar. One stellar object was listed as a candidate BLAGN (Broad Line Active Galactic Nucleus) which is likely an underfed quasar or one hidden behind the galaxy's stars and dust. As light travel time distances are rather questionable at such high redshifts the redshift z value is also given for distant quasars when Z is greater than 1.

One asteroid was sneaking out of the frame in the lower right corner when I started the luminance data and is noted in the annotated image. One red frame was totally lost to clouds and the remaining frame very noisy so red data is questionable. I didn't realize this until I went to process it months later and too late to reshoot.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10, R (poor)=1x10' GB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2793

NGC2805

HOLM 124 is a group of 4 galaxies in eastern Ursa Major, southeast of M81 and M82. At one time it was considered part of the M81 group but then redshift and other distance determinations showed it much more distant at say 84 to 100 million light-years. The main galaxy in the group is NGC 2805. It shows a lot of distortion from its interaction with the others three millions of years ago. Its arms are quite angular except in the core region. Most edges are linear rather than curved and it has some rather odd arms such as the spur to the west coming from its northern end. Other arms show lots of star-forming regions that NED shows as other galaxies except for one labeled Part of Galaxy (PoG). I've shown them in the annotated image but since their redshift matches that of the galaxy they are unlikely separate galaxies. The galaxy is quite blue, likely due to all the star formation going on in it.

The other three members of the HOLM 124 group are to the upper left; NGC 2814, NGC 2820 and the really disrupted NGC 2820A/IC 2458. NGC 2814 is made up of several bright blobs. The only reddish one is well above center near a foreground star. The central blob is quite blue but does appear to have a short edge-on linear dust trail through it but it doesn't continue into the other blobs. I sure would like to know what it looks like more face on. NED classifies it simply as Sb: agreeing it is an edge on spiral.

NGC 2820 is also an edge on spiral with an odd extension from the west end. NED classifies it as SB(s)c pec sp. It too has a star cloud that NED shows as a separate galaxy though it looks to my eye to be a bright star cloud in the galaxy. Being blue I don't see it as the core of some galaxy being eaten by the much larger 2820. NGC 2820A seems to be the most torn up of the four. Being small that isn't all that surprising. NED uses the brightest of the star clouds at its north end for its position rather than an average of all its parts. The north end appears to be made of a close bunch of star-forming clouds while the southern region looks almost like a separate galaxy with a blue core and star disk around it though the "core" is oblong and likely another star-forming region as it is blue. NED classifies it as I0 pec:.

NGC 2805 was discovered by William Herschel on April 2, 1791. It is in the second Herschel 400 observing program. NGC 2814 and 2820 were also discovered by William Herschel but on the following night, April 3, 1791. Or was it the same night, just after midnight? I find this a bit ambiguous. These two aren't in either Herschel 400 program. NGC 2820/IC 2458 was discovered by Guillaume Bigourdan over 100 years later on March 14, 1899.

The annotated image shows the more distant galaxies that NED shows a redshift for. This is a retake of a much earlier image, 2007, that was taken on an even better night but back then my collimation was off so stars are a bit screwy. Color data was severely damaged due to a light leak I didn't know was there. This created a gradient in the luminance channel and a red gradient in the red frames. Back then I didn't have either the knowledge or tools to deal with it. Due to these issues, I did a complete retake on March 22, 2017 UT. The first clear night with good seeing in months.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=1x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2805

NGC2841

NGC 2841 is a flocculent galaxy in Ursa Major that reminds me of M63 with its tufts of star clouds rather than defined arms. The distance to this one is rather vague. I've seen estimates from 45 to 80 million light years. Redshift and Cepheid measurements favor the shorter estimate while Tulley-Fisher measurements and a type 1a supernova estimate put it further away. Considering large earth-based scopes have resolved a few stars in it I'd favor the shorter estimates. Hubble easily resolves it into stars. Though there's no published Hubble image, you can see some good examples at the Hubble Legacy Archive.

NED classes it an SA(r)b:;LINER Sy1 indicating it has a very active nucleus. The NGC project takes the simple route with Sb I as its classification. It was discovered by William Herschel on March 9, 1788. It is in the original H400 program. My entry from April 15, 1985 with my 10" f/5 on a humid night limiting how faint I could see using up to 100x reads; "Large, bright, apparently nearly face on spiral galaxy only slightly elongated but does stretch over to a nearby field star. A starlike nucleus with a beautiful halo about it." I'm confused. My description would imply it is rather round rather than elongated but I was seeing it at least to the star near the northwest end of the galaxy as that has to be the one I mention. That would imply I did see it elongated. Makes me wish I could go back in time and ask myself what I was thinking when I wrote this.

While the Arp Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies has been my main target of late I'm also working on the objects in the Astronomical League's Herschel 400 list from the early 80's. This was one of the nicer ones on that list. One that deserves more attention than most astrophotographers give it.

The eastern (left) side appears to be the side closest to us. The flocculent nature of the west side is somewhat hidden by what appears to be a gauze of halo stars. Though after a pass through the high pass filter this difference was greatly reduced.

There are a lot of background galaxies so I prepared an annotated version. One object is considered a quasar in some catalogs and a just a galaxy with a strong AGN by another. Looking at the PSF in my image it is that of an extended object rather than a point source so it appears I'm picking up some of the galaxy the quasar is in. Not all that common but considering it is only about 2.44 billion light-years distant not surprising. It is labeled as Q/G in the annotated image since more catalogs say quasar than galaxy.

The brightest background galaxy in the image is CGCG 265-009. I found no attempt to classify this odd blue galaxy. It looks like a two-armed barred spiral with lots of disconnected star clouds in the disk unrelated to the arms. It would seem to fit somewhere in Arp's Atlas of peculiar galaxies.

The Sloan image of NGC 2841 is at:
http://astronomerica.awardspace.com/SDSS-19/NGC2841.php
It doesn't show the flocculent nature very well, probably because of its heavy weighting toward IR light. The dark line is the gap between the CCDs that make up its imaging array.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x10', RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2841

NGC2859

NGC 2859 is a double ring galaxy in southwest Leo Minor about 85 to 90 million light-years distant. The core is elongated rather east-west while the bar is rotated about 80 degrees to a north-south alignment. The bar is very weak. The ends at the first ring, however, are rather brightened. Except for this very weak bar the first ring is not really connected to the core. The outer ring appears even less connected to the rest of the galaxy. There is a hint the bar may continue as a fuzzy area to the outer ring. It may be due to foreshortening rather than a real connection. I found nothing in the literature explaining this unusual arrangement. The outer ring shows hints of spiral structure. M94 has a similar detached ring with some spiral structure in the ring. Others would include Hoag's Object But these have only one ring and are not barred spirals. They have much redder cores as well. Are they similar in origin to NGC 2859?

NED classes it as (R)SB(r)0+ while the NGC project says simple SB0. I think this is one of the fuzziest, most ill-defined galaxy I've ever imaged. The two to its north, that are part of its group, seem very fuzzy as well. Is this trying to tell us something? Wish I knew. NGC 2859 was discovered by William Herschel on March 28, 1786. It is in the original H400 program. My log entry from April 15, 1985 with my 10" f/5 on a humidity compromised night using up to 120x reads; "Interesting, slightly elongated galaxy. Faint but mottled halo around a brighter center with a starlike nucleus. Requires averted vision to see the mottling." I can't see the mottling in my image nor any I found online. This may tell more about how my eye-brain was functioning than the galaxy.

The annotated image, as usual, shows the distance to all objects in my image for which NED has redshift data. UGC 05004 is classed as IM and along with another to its west appears to be part of the same group as NGC 2859. A pair of galaxies in the upper right quadrant share a common redshift that put them just under a billion light-years away. Their disks overlap. Hard to tell if they are really interacting or just a line of sight pair. They certainly are part of the same galaxy group.

One mystery is the quasar to the east of UGC 05004, NGC U2859 U02. The quasar is listed as 19th magnitude which is brighter than some others easily seen in my image. Seeing nothing at the location I checked the Sloan image which goes deeper than mine. Again, no sign of the quasar. Its position is uncertain with an error bar of 2.5" which is 5 times greater than most objects in the image. But nothing is seen in a 10" circle in the Sloan image. Also, the object isn't listed in the Sloan data at NED. I don't know if it doesn't exist or the coordinates are wrong. I marked the position but don't expect to see anything there above my noise level.

Two 7th magnitude K0 stars tried hard to mess up my image. One by being close to NGC 2859 and another I thought I had far enough off the bottom of the image but obviously, that wasn't the case. I could have cloned out the nasty glare but decided against it. My cloning skills tend to be rather poor and obvious.

Asteroid is (150917) 2001 TD44 at an estimated magnitude of 19.7

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

Related Designations for NGC2859

NGC2876

NGC 2876 and its companions are located in Hydra about 2 degrees north of Alphard (Alpha Hydrae). This put it right in the geostationary satellite belt as seen from my latitude. What a pain. I had dozens of satellites to remove from these images, many right atop each other such that auto rejection software was worthless. Also with only 2 color frames per color frame it wouldn't work in any case. This means it is rather low in my sky where seeing isn't all that great nor is transparency. I knew it had a plume to the west but the other plumes took me by surprise, especially the long one to the east. The galaxy is about 290 million light-years distant. That means from the end of the eastern plume straight across to the end of the western plume is over a half million light-years while the bright inner core spans only 38,000 light-years. It has three companions at virtually the same redshift. IC 2471 also has plumes though my exposure time was too short to pick them up very well. I suspect an interaction between the two occurred sometime in the past. Both are classified as being peculiar. Though I suspect the long eastern plume of NGC 2876 may trace the path of a galaxy it cannibalized.

With MCG-01-24-01 to the north, NGC 2876 and IC 2471 form a triple galaxy cataloged as LDCE 0640. Why LEDA 1029934 to the west doesn't make a quadruple I don't know but its redshift is very slightly less than the other three. Apparently that was sufficient to throw it out of the group. It is by far the smallest of the group at 35,000 light-years. But then MCG -01-24-014 a bit removed in angular distance has virtually the same redshift as the first three and LEDA 154000. Including these makes a sextuple galaxy group but only the tightest three qualified apparently more due to angular distance than anything.

David Malin (who else?) has taken a very deep image of the plumes involved. See them at: http://ftp.aao.gov.au/images/deep_html/n2876_d.html

I find very little on these galaxies. One source I found claims NGC 2876 harbors a mid size black hole but I was unable to find any paper supporting this and the webpage gave no references. NGC 2876 was discovered by Édouard Stephan on March 5, 1880 while IC 2471 was found by Guillaume Bigourdan on March 5, 1899.

The very red star to the southwest of NGC 2876 and northwest of IC 2471 is a Mira class variable star, RZ Hya. Classed as a M5e star (the e means it has emission lines) its red magnitude is 5 magnitudes brighter than its blue according to SIMBAD. Measured on my frames it is some 6 magnitudes brighter in red than blue light and somewhat dimmer than its average value. That may account for how red it is. SIMBAD lists its IR brightness a 4.82 in J band and 3.53 in K so it is emitting most of its light in the infra red part of the spectrum. It's listed B magnitude is 16! Now that's a red star.

While there are other galaxies in the field that may or may not be part of this group I found no redshift data for any of them so didn't include them on the annotated image. I'd not have prepared one except I picked up two faint asteroids. The minor planet center lists them at 20.1 and 20.3 magnitude. I found something very odd about the 20.3 magnitude one. While my seeing for the 20.1 magnitude asteroid allowed it to show as a nice fine trace, tighter than I usually get on an asteroid of this brightness the 20.3 magnitude asteroid is very fuzzy yet the two are only separated by 85 seconds of arc. Both were taken on the same image frames. So why is one fuzzy and one sharp? I know a very few asteroids have been reported to show comet like traits, I don't find (366447) 2001 YU51 to be one of them. This was taken in October so too late to go back and take another look at it. It is a mystery. My processing was identical for the two regions so that's not it. The raw FITs show the same issue.

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

Related Designations for NGC2876

NGC2884

NGC 2884 and 2889 are a considered a galaxy pair in Hydra. They apparently are only an optical pair as NGC 2884 has a redshift based distance of 250 million light-years while NGC 2889 is only 170,000 light-years distant. While they appear somewhat the same size when the distance difference is taken into account you find NGC 2884 is much larger at nearly 160,000 light-years in diameter making it a very large spiral while NGC 2889 is only about 95,000 light-years across, a bit smaller than our galaxy

NGC 2889 attracted my interest as it fits Arp's category for galaxies with one heavy arm. It does so to my eye better than some he did include. It is classed as SAB(rs)c at NED. The NGC Project say Sb+. So the NGC project says it doesn't have a bar though to my eye it has a short one running nearly east-west, a bit tipped to the north at the west end. Its spiral structure is only slightly blue indicating it has few if any really recent star formation going on in it. It was discovered by William Herschel on March 19, 1786 and is in the second Herschel 400 object list.

NGC 2884 is a rather normal looking spiral seen rather edge on that's unusually large as already mentioned. Its core region is quite red but the outer arms quite blue so there's quite an age difference in the stars in this galaxy compared to the rather blah coloration of NGC 2889. It is classed as S0/a? by NED and Sa by the NGC project. While Herschel found 2889 he somehow missed NGC 2884 which wasn't discovered until 79 years later by Heinrich d'Arrest.

This part of the sky is poorly studied for galaxies. Only these two galaxies had distance data and most of the others you see in my image aren't even mentioned at NED as galaxies. The edge on at the bottom edge left of center is only listed as an Ultraviolet Source even though it is obviously a galaxy. Due to the dearth of information, I didn't prepare an annotated image.

As was common this spring skies were awful which was compounded by an aurora brightening the sky and playing havoc with color balance. Seeing the field was being washed out by skies over 10 times brighter than normal I started to take a second round the next night. However, conditions quickly went even sourer and only one luminance frame was obtained before the observatory shut itself down. I decided to go with what I had even though with the very bright sky it is much noisier than I'd normally allow. But then that's the norm for this spring it seems.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=5x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2884

NGC2903

NGC 2903 is found just off the nose of the Leo the Lion and is big and bright enough that it should have made Messier's list but for some reason didn't. Frost was more of a problem on this one and the cold also caused the brighter stars to "bloom" to the right making them lopsided. This is a problem I'll address when working on the heaters. It too only shows up when the camera is run at very cold temperatures. Edit: The front of the optical window can frost on very cold nights. I now combat that with an extra heater on the window and desiccant in the telescope itself so it isn't a problem anymore but was when this early image was taken.) The galaxy is short red and some green due to the frost problem thus is way too blue. (Edit: easy to deal with but I didn't have the skills and tools needed when this was processed. On the bottom edge of the galaxy just left of center is a knot of stars that at one time were thought to be a separate galaxy. Thus it was given its own NGC number as NGC 2905. You might wonder why it isn't 2904. The NGC catalog is ordered by Right Ascension (similar to longitude on the earth) at the time the catalog was first created. The wobble of the earth's axis called precession has changed the RA order of the galaxies since then but they kept their original order. It turns out 2904 is a galaxy too far south for me to image (though it is above my horizon) in the constellation of Antlia -- the air pump. Bet you non-astronomers never knew there was an air pump in the sky!

NGC 2903 was discovered by William Herschel on November 16, 1784. It is in the original H400 observing program. My entry from April 15, 1985, on a humidity limited night using my 10" f/5 at up to 120x reads; "An old favorite. Large tilted spiral galaxy with a bright nucleus. Arms to the northeast seem brighter and more extended than those to the southwest of the nucleus." I doubt, due to the humidity, I was not seeing the fainter arms. They seem rather similar but the inner brighter region does appear to fit my visual description.

You can read a bit more about this galaxy and see a Hubble shot of the center of it at:
http://www.seds.org/messier/xtra/ngc/n2903.html

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x5', RG=3x5' B=3x7' (Edit: This mistake boosted blue even more something I couldn't compensate for in my ignorance at the time,), STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2903

NGC2929

WBL 227 is a group of spiral galaxies about 350 million light-years distant in Ursa Major, less than two degrees from the far more famous M51 in Canes Venatici. Officially there are 4 galaxies, NGC 2929, NGC 2930, NGC 2931 and CGCG 122-039. But CGCG 122-039 is two spiral galaxies MCG +04-23-021 and MCG +04-23-22. Here we have a case of 3 plus 1 equals 5.

The three NGC galaxies were all discovered by William Herschel but not on the same night. He tended to leave the scope at a set declination and pick up what the earth's rotation brought into view. Thus he found NGC 2929 and 2230 on November 30, 1834 but didn't sweep up NGC 2231 further north until nearly a month later on December 23, 1834. All are too faint for either H400 list.

NGC 2929 is listed at NED as having a companion on its long drawn out arm that I've marked on the annotated image. It looks like just another knot in the arm to me. I rather doubt it is a real separate galaxy. I've noted it in the annotated image. The odd drawn out arm would fit several of Arp's categories, especially that for spiral galaxies with a heavy arm. NED lists it as S?. I think they mean it is a spiral, they just can't say if it is Sa, Sb, Sc or Sd so leave that letter as a question mark. The NGC Project just says S. While it looks rather small that's due to its distance of 350 million light-years. It really is some 150,000 light-years across.

NGC 2930 is really messed up but has some hint of spiral structure. I'm surprised it isn't listed as Sm. Maybe that is why it too gets a question mark at both NED and the NGC Project. It is some 70,000 light-years in diameter.

NGC 2931 at first glance appears to be a spiral but its arms aren't very "normal" looking to me. NED didn't even try to classify it. However, the NGC Project gives it an S? While it appears larger than 2930 I measure its size as being about the same, 70,000 light years. It's just that it is rounder so covers more area but actually is about the same diameter.

All three NGC galaxies were discovered by Heinrich d'Arrest on February 21, 1863.

The pair of galaxies to the east, CGCG 122-039, appear to be somewhat disorganized spirals as well though I found no one willing to try and classify them. Their redshift puts them slightly further away though I suspect this is more due to their motion in the group than a real distance difference. MCG +04-23-021 is about 65,000 light-years in size while its companion to the east is almost 80,000 light-years across. Its longer drawn out form that makes it appear smaller due to the viewing angle seeing it more edge on.

Since all of them appear disturbed it makes me wonder if they all didn't interact in some way in the past resulting in their motley appearance as we see them some 350 million years ago.

The annotated image shows other galaxies such as LEDA 4207490, 4559638 and maybe 1683427, 1683902 and 1685311 are likely smaller members of the group, though they may form a separate group. Most everything else in the image is well over a billion light-years away.

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

Related Designations for NGC2929