NGC3254

NGC 3254 is a nice spiral galaxy in Leo Minor about 76 million light-years distant by redshift and 94 million by non-redshift measurements. Using the shorter distance I get a size of 112,000 light-years. The greater distance its size is 142,000 light-years. That would make it unusually large so I'm going to go with the nearer distance and thus smaller size which still makes it larger than our galaxy. Also, like ours, it appears to have only a small bulge at its core. That could indicate a smaller than typical supermassive black hole at its center.

The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on March 13, 1785. It is in the second H400 observing program, my notes from that somehow got lost in the move up here 13 years ago. I never transcribed them to a computer file as I did the those from the original program. Where's a time machine when you need it?

One field galaxy in the image has a rather rare catalog designation KISSB. That stands for Kitt peak national observatory International Spectroscopic Survey Blue spectral region. I assume they left off the final S for spectral region because that would make it KISSBS and they don't want to be known for BS. Though Bemidji State University is only about 40 miles north of me and it gives Bachelor of Science degrees so you can get a BS degree from BUS. not only that their team mascot for boys and girls teams makes them the Beavers.

I again ran into what appears to be a mistake in Ned's database. There's a near point source east of the upper end of NGC 3254 that NED says is a galaxy but it puts the verified spectroscopic redshift at 3.156588. While I can see some quasars at that distance (11.68 billion light-years look back time) there's no chance I'd see a galaxy at that distance, The HST has to look long and hard to see them at that redshift. I've labeled it G? and (Q) for my judgment it really is a quasar and Ned's designation as a galaxy is true only because quasars are so bright it dominates and hides most any trace of the galaxy it is in.

Two asteroids were in the far eastern side of the image frame when it was taken. One was bright enough for its color trails to be seen against the background sky glow. I took the two blue and 2 of the 4 luminance frames on the eastern side of the meridian, flipped to the other side and took the rest. Most say to save red to last since it isn't hurt by poor seeing as much as the other colors. This is true and I used to do this. But then I realized high resolution of color data isn't at all that important but getting the intensity of the colors correct is. This way I balance red and blue at about the same altitude. Green is by far the least important color, I can compensate easily for too little green so now save it to last. I found on difficult nights this helps. This wasn't such a night but it is now the order I do things, saving green rather than red for the lowest data taken. That plus eXcalibrator make short work of color balance.

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

Related Designations for NGC3254

NGC3294

There are three NGC objects in the image located in northeastern Leo Minor. NGC 3294 was my main target as a rather photogenic spiral galaxy that is in the original Herschel 400 list having been discovered by William Herschel on March 17, 1787. It is 85 million light-years distant by redshift and 93 million light-years by the median of many mostly Tully Fisher measurements. The other NGC galaxy is NGC 3304 also discovered by William Herschel the same night as he found NGC 3294. It is nearly 3 times as distant at 330 million light-years by redshift. The third NGC object is NGC 3291. It was discovered by Guillaume Bigourdan nearly 100 years later on April 5, 1885. The reason Herschel didn't "find" it is it is just a field star. Even Bigourdan couldn't find it when he tried to verify it a few nights later. On a poor night, a star at the magnitude limit of the scope can look like a fuzzy galaxy and fool even a rather expert observer. His position was precisely on the star so why he didn't scratch it when he couldn't verify it I don't know but the NGC is littered with such stellar finds.

More puzzling is that the Sloan Survey and thus NED show a distant quasar candidate visible through NGC 3294 which I've marked on the annotated image. It has a photographically determined redshift of 1.475 which puts it over 9 billion light-years distant. The only problem is I see only a blue star cloud at its position in my image and in the Sloan Survey image. I couldn't see any hint of a point source in the Sloan image. Though I do see a possible starlike point at about the right spot just beside the star cloud in a stack of two UV images of the core region.

Toward the lower left of the image is the galaxy ASK 498130.0 at 1.53 billion light-years. It appears to have some large plumes or drawn out arms that come from an otherwise compact elliptical-like source. I wish seeing had been better to get a better idea of what is going on here. It looks interesting if it could be seen better. I say this because the PSF of the bright core hints at it containing two near point sources. I'm thinking this might be two colliding galaxies with the resulting plumes. Something to revisit on a far better night.

The annotated image shows all objects for which NED had redshift data. I also marked a very faint, low surface brightness galaxy listed as SDSS J103715.79+372035.8. It is near the center of the image. I thought it a bit of noise from a bad flat but it does show faintly in the Sloan image and is listed as a galaxy but without any redshift data.

Seeing was poor for his image making for a rather soft image. Unfortunately, that's been the norm of late.

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

Related Designations for NGC3294

NGC3299

NGC 3299, NGC 3306 and CGCG 065-069 are a trio of unrelated galaxies in Leo just west of the M95-96-105 group. Being unrelated I'll cover them separately. NGC 3299 is a low surface brightness galaxy with little detail seen even though it is face on to us. While its distance by redshift is 46 million light-years that is likely too far. Tully Fisher measurements put it only 18 million light-years away. If the latter it is only 12,600 light-years across though it is 32,300 light-years across if the larger distance is accepted. Quite a disparity. It is classed as SAB(s)dm at NED and S(B)dm at the NGC Project, which makes it a barred spiral though the bar is extremely difficult to see. It was discovered by William Herschel in 1784 using his 18.7" reflector. Since I've seen reports of it requiring averted vision to be seen in a 17.5" scope today it must have been near Herschel's visual limit when discovered. Several galaxies can be seen right through its thin disk. I've marked the one that has redshift distance data. I'm a bit suspicious about the distant galaxies entry in NED however. It's distance of 3.1 billion light-years seems reasonable enough, what bothers me is NED classifying it. Since it shows as only a couple pixels in size how they determine it to be an Sdm galaxy I can't fathom. Of all the galaxies at this distance I've seen in NED this is the first they listed with a classification.

NGC 3306 is sometimes called a companion of NGC 3299 but that is only a line of sight illusion. It's distance by redshift is 150 million light-years and grows to nearly 170 million light-years by Tully Fisher measurements. A rather good agreement this time. It is classed as SB(s)m? by NED and Sc? by the NGC Project. Even though much further away it is easier to see visually by all reports though oddly both William and John Herschel missed it when looking at the nearby but far fainter NGC 3299. Its discovery had to wait for another 102 years, until 1886 when Lewis Swift found it in a 16" refractor. I've seen it, just barely, in my 10" f/5 scope but not NGC 3299 even though it is listed as being a magnitude fainter than NGC 3299. It's light is spread out over a much smaller area making it much easier to find.

CGCG 065-069 is a more normal looking spiral but its two arms are quite unsymmetrical. It is classed as Sc by NED. It is by far the most distant of the trio. Also the one I was able to find the least on.

There's a lot going on in the image as shown by the annotated image. Between the two NGC galaxies is a pair of very blue galaxies. The western one has a distance of 460 million light-years. No distance data is available for the one abutting it to the east. Are they a colliding pair? I see no plumes so they are likely further away from each other than they appear or this is their initial meeting so there hasn't been times for plumes or distortion to set in.

Below NGC 3299 near the bottom of the image is ASK 430799 at 2.16 billion light-years. It does have some interesting plumes which make it nearly 200,000 light-years across. Unfortunately I found nothing more on it however. The ASK catalog was new to me and new to NED as they too didn't list it as a catalog when I clicked on the link to tell me more about the catalog it came back with it being a designation recognized by NED. A bit more digging and I found it stands for "Automatic Spectroscopic K-means-based classification" and NED now has over 700,000 entries from this catalog yet doesn't seem to know it as yet. So what does this mean? You can read all about it (put on the hip waders) at: http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/714/1/487/pdf/0004-637X_714_1_487.pdf

Several galaxy clusters are in the image. Only those with a defined Big Cluster Galaxy are shown in the annotated image as the rest were too uncertain for me to include. Seeing was poor for this one and got worse during the imaging with the blue frames really tore up with 6" seeing which makes separating galaxy from star difficult so I didn't attempt it. If the distance estimate was done photographically I've indicated that with a "p" after the distance. Usually the distance for the BCG was slightly different and often did have spectroscopic redshift data (no "p"). Likely this latter distance estimate is more accurate.

The distance to quasars is so confusing due to relativity issues that besides a light travel time distance I've listed their redshift z value showing how much their light is red shifted. A z of 1 means the wavelength has doubled in value due to its expansion velocity. 2 means it is tripled. So a spectral line in the near ultra violet is now in the near infra red part of the spectrum for a z=2 quasar. We are seeing its deep ultra violet light shifted into the visual spectrum. Even so a quasar with a z=2.155987 appears very blue in the image indicating it is very bright in the very deep part of the ultra violet spectrum. Now that is hot!

There are three asteroids in the image. See the annotated image for their details.

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

Related Designations for NGC3299

NGC3319

NGC 3319 is a barred spiral galaxy in Ursa Major about 45 million light-years away. It is odd in having a bright, high surface brightness bar with low surface brightness arms. Most of the current star formation is going on in the bar and some in small regions of the disk, mostly in the southern arm. NED classes it as SB(rs)cd while the NGC Project says SBc. Both agree it has HII emission from mainly the bar and southern arm which shows many bright blue HII regions in my image compared to the northern arm. It is quite symmetrical in the bar, just not in the disk. Radio shows the HI to be very asymmetrical as well. Why, considering it is a lone galaxy, is a puzzle. It was discovered by William Herschel on February 3, 1788. It is in the second H400 observing program.

In the upper right corned of my image is a galaxy cluster with a large bright cluster galaxy, likely a cD galaxy, at its core. It, and the galaxy are listed at 1.6 billion light-years. NED shows two entries for this cluster: WHL J103801.8+414625 with 23 galaxies and WHL J103801.8+414625 with 43 galaxies. No size is shown for either. NED describes the latter as a "fossil group". This term is used for clusters in which the major cD galaxy is the result of mergers of smaller galaxies in the cluster then for billions of years has had no further mergers since the initial round of mergers created the cD. This one appears to have a rather large edge on spiral with very unsymmetrical arms. This might indicate activity in the group after all. Though it is slightly closer by redshift so possibly isn't a member. The difference is small enough to be due to relative motion however. It quite likely is a cluster member. You can read more about these clusters at: http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMCFFOFGLE_index_0.html
http://www.gemini.edu/node/172
http://www.gemini.edu/node/258

It appears this cluster is part of Abell 1056. I've marked the center of that cluster as NED has it. It is listed as 24 minutes in diameter so would include this group. Only problem is the cluster is listed at 1.1 billion light years not 1.6 and there are only 2 galaxies, even further east, with about (1.0) that distance. This is an estimate and if based on brightness of the fossil group galaxies would understate the distance. He tended to estimate distance based on the brightness of the tenth brightest member. That would be a member of the fossil group. It is listed with a richness class of 1 which has 50 to 79 galaxies. So likely it is just his estimate that is in error. Other than the cluster the field is rather unremarkable.

As is often the case its the omissions from NED that I have trouble with. There's a large smudge of a galaxy just east of the lone quasar in the image (southeast of NGC 3319). It is real, not a reflection as it shows in the POSS plates. But NED has nothing at that position. If you go up from the smudge and a tad right a very faint galaxy is seen. It is in NED at magnitude 19.1. Way wrong as the quasar is also listed at 19.1. But the integrated magnitude of the smudge would be about 19.1. Have they merged two entries? No filter is given for the magnitudes, usually that means they were taken with a V (green) filter. But it could be the filter for the quasar was very different from the galaxy and that accounts for the difference. Though they should have mentioned that.

Down and left a ways from the quasar and smudge galaxy is a cluster of very faint galaxies. Individually most, if not all (I only sampled a few), are listed in NED but no cluster is located at that position. Sure looks like one to me. Unfortunately, none had redshift data so its distance is unknown, at least to NED.

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

Related Designations for NGC3319

NGC3332

NGC 3332/NGC 3342 is a shell galaxy in Leo 2.6° south of M95. Redshift puts it about 28 million light-years from us. The median of 11 measurements of a type 1A supernova SN 2005ki put it about 27 million light-years away. Surprisingly good agreement. It was discovered twice by William Herschel. Once on January 18, 1784 as NGC 3342 and again on March 4, 1796, as NGC 3332. Actually, he used his own notation that was converted to NGC numbers for the catalog based on his listed Right Ascension. His position for NGC 3332 was incorrect so wasn't recognized as a duplicate. Herschel's notes for what is now his NGC 3342 position reads: "The faintest and smallest nebula imaginable. I viewed it a long while and with a higher power than the sweeper. Having no person at the clock, I went in to write down the time and found it impossible to recover the nebula. It appeared like a vS nebulous star, and is probably of the cometic sort; there was another vS star south-following (I think, or rather, am pretty sure), and it preceded a pB * [the nebula is south-preceding of a star by a diagram, about 6 arcmin][JLED]. It should have been secured before I went into the light. Its place must be about 2 1/2 deg following rho Leonis and about 10 arcmin more north than that star."

While the galaxy is of low surface brightness it isn't as faint as Herschel's note would indicate. Conditions must have been rather poor that night or else he was looking at something else but the stars he mentions are correct for this galaxy.

The galaxy is a lonely shell galaxy. The shell, while faint is quite red indicating it is old since all the young and middle age stars are mostly gone. Shells of galaxies in clusters where most reside, since they are the result of a merger with another galaxy, quickly vanish either absorbed back into the galaxy or scattered further afield by interaction with others in the cluster. In this case, being a lone galaxy the shell has been able to survive for several billion years.

It isn't quite alone as two dwarf galaxies that have a somewhat similar redshift are in my field, AGC 202230.0 and ASK 279557.0. Two galaxies are seen through NGC 3332/42. The most obvious isn't even listed in NED which surprised me. The other is there but with no redshift data. All with redshift data are noted in the annotated image.

In early April I started having trouble with my filter wheel. When first fired up it wouldn't rotate. Sometimes powering the camera off and on fixed the issue. Other times I'd have to go out, open the camera and replace the band the friction drive pushes against as it had come off. After 10 years of hard use it was stretched enough it wasn't holding on. At least I thought the trouble started in April. Turns out this February 25 image was the first sign of trouble and I didn't catch it. I went to process the image and found one third of it was through the luminance filter but then there was a dark band then the far eastern edge was taken through the H alpha filter so had little to no signal. When it rotated to the other filters the problem corrected itself and after that all was fine but I was short most of the luminance data for the eastern side. This is where taking the color data at the same binning as the luminance paid off. I used it to fill in for the missing luminance by creating a pseudo luminance from the color data and then blending it in using the lighten mode. I had to work the background heavily to hide the lower SN ratio of that part of the image but otherwise, I salvaged the image without cropping it severely leaving the galaxy on the edge of the cropped frame. The issue was due to the friction band being over 10 years old and had lost its stretch so barely held on to the groove it rides in. I fought the issue for some time before finally realizing the cause. I ordered a new band from SBIG and they were to send it out. But everyone left for NEAF and that didn't happen. The order reached shipping but had gotten no further until I was getting desperate after the band finally broke. I found the rubber bands the mailman used to bind my mail worked but had to be replaced every couple days or it too broke. After my second request, the new bands (they sent me two in one package) arrived and at no cost. After finding this image compromised I checked all those between this one and early April when the issue next appeared that I caught. Fortunately, I found no problem. So I think this is the only one with the issue but with some 25 objects between then and the band's replacement, there might be one I failed to notice. I sure hope not. I don't need any more processing nightmares like this one created.

I was surprised that I was able to pull out a bit more of the shell than I saw in any other image Google turned up for this galaxy. There weren't many which also surprised me as it does have a nice shell though it needs a lot more time than I gave it to really bring out. My sky was exceedingly bright (for me) with airglow the night I took this image so it doesn't go as deep as normal.

If using The Sky 6 to find this galaxy use NGC 3342 as NGC 3332 pointed me to the wrong position. Nothing was at the position in fact.

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

Related Designations for NGC3332

NGC3338

NGC 3338 is a very large spiral under the belly of Leo the Lion about 76 million light-years distant by redshift. It is classed as SA(s)c. Besides the simple arm structure, there are faint hints of pieces of the galaxy extending well to the east and a bit to the west of the arms. The west side is harmed by the 9th magnitude star SAO 99253 so the full extent on that side is hard to determine. Using what I can see the galaxy is about 160,000 light-years across at its redshift distance. That's one big spiral. It was discovered on March 19, 1784 by William Herschel. Besides being rather odd it also made my to-do list being a member of the second Herschel 400 list.

Its structure is rather odd. The core is quite small and bright. It is surrounded by a nearly featureless disk with a dark dust ring circling the disk. The spiral arms come from beyond this dark ring. While parts of the arms are fine and well defined other areas are quite flocculent in nature. It is if it can't make up its mind if it wants to be a grand design spiral or a flocculent spiral. This dual personality plus the faint scattered "debris" may be indicative of a merger in the not so distant past.

It has two dwarf companions, AGC 203080 to the northwest and AGC 205268 to the east. They are of about the same redshift. Using their redshift value they are 6,000 and 8,000 light years in size respectively. I doubt that devouring something of their size could create the disruption seen in NGC 3338.

Conditions were very poor for this one. I didn't realize it or I'd have retaken the data. Seeing was fair but transparency went downhill from the start. Note how the asteroid trails fade away. showing the deterioration of conditions. For this one, I took the luminance on one side of the meridian and color on the other. The color data was very weak and failed to pick up the fainter parts of NGC 3338's outer arms so they are white. The galaxy, while not really a low surface brightness galaxy is noisy as if it were due to lack of data even after an extra luminance frame. With better data, I could have pulled a lot more detail out of this galaxy but it was just too noisy to attempt that.

While there are two galaxy clusters in the image only the bright cluster galaxy seems to show due to the poor conditions. Also, I should have moved the scope a bit south to pick up a neat flat galaxy that is mostly off the frame. What little shows appear rather warped. I'll try and do that when or if I retake the data.

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

Related Designations for NGC3338

NGC3344

NGC 3344 is a much neglected nearby classic face on barred spiral in Leo Minor. At a distance of only 25 million light-years according to the HST website, it is surprisingly poorly known. It was on my list as being a Herschel 400 object. I've been slowly picking these up as time permits. This one happens to be very photogenic but much overlooked. The NGC Project classifies it as Sc ignoring the bar. NED gives the more generally accepted classification of (R)SAB(r)bc. While redshift puts it some 41 million light-years away other measurements put it much closer. The HST, using both a type one supernova and some easily resolved Cepheid variable stars puts it at a more reasonable 25 million light-years which also matches the resolution the HST gives on the galaxy. See: http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1242a/ for the full story and images.

My entry in the Herschel 400 log from April 15, 1985 (must have been celebrating the end of tax season at the telescope) reads: "Large, very faint, circular galaxy with a 13th magnitude starlike nucleus. Hard to see as it overlaps one member of a double star. Very confusing at lower power." The two stars against the disk are listed at 11.4 and 10.0. Apparently, I was seeing only the inner part of the disk with the brighter star beyond the disk I was seeing. Though I'd have thought I'd have said triple star rather than double. Apparently, I wasn't seeing the fainter, third member? At 13.5 magnitude I'd have expected it to be visible but faint. I need to look at it again this spring it would appear.

While seeing was rather average, transparency was below average. I should have used more than my good skies 4 luminance frames to pick out the faint outer arms. I had to stretch further than I like to bring them out raising the noise in the background more than I'd like. Longer times or a better night would bring out a lot I missed.

The annotated image points out two star clusters NED had listed as blue objects in the galaxy. The HST image doesn't extend out far enough to pick them up, unfortunately. The galaxy has a lot of very tiny HII regions but my seeing wasn't good enough to pick them up.

The annotated image shows a large number of galaxies in the field to be at a distance of 720 and 740 million light-years. I found one galaxy group at NED that contained only 4 galaxies at the 720 million light-year distance. Which four I don't know and why the rest are ignored I don't know. There are several galaxy pairs in the image but only one of the pair, if any, would have a redshift measurement so hard to know if they are really close pairs or just line of sight galaxies. Again I'm left with more questions than I started with.

The one asteroid in the image is also noted on the annotated image.

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

Related Designations for NGC3344

NGC3346

NGC 3346 is a face on barred spiral in Leo north of M105. Both redshift and Tully Fisher measurements put its distance at 73 million light-years. NED classifies it as SB(rs)cd while the NGC project says SBc. In any case, it has a nice mix of spiral arms and spurs. It is quite blue indicating recent star formation. Even the core is bluer than I expected. With all the blue star clouds I expected to find some HII regions but there's only a hint of a couple in my image. A note at NED indicates the authors of the paper failed to resolve the expected HII regions as well so I can't feel too bad about missing them.

The image contains many galaxy clusters listed at NED. Most have a Bright Cluster Galaxy that I used for the center if it was within 1" of arc of the center position. In most cases, both the cluster and the Bright Cluster Galaxy had the same photographically determined redshift. In those cases, I listed only one distance with a "p" to indicate the photographic nature of the distance estimate. If they were different then the second distance is that of the galaxy. If no "p" then it was spectroscopically determined and likely the better value. In a few cases, the distances to a cluster were listed by NED as "Estimated". Those are indicated with an "e". How they were estimated wasn't given.

Many of the clusters seem themselves clustered. Often they have similar galaxy counts. Usually, they came from different catalogs. I have to wonder if these clusters of clusters are really looking at the same galaxies but have determined the centers and sizes of the groups (none gave a radius or diameter) differently but are really referring to some of the same galaxies. If the line drawn doesn't end in a galaxy then there was no bright cluster galaxy listed and the line points to the position given for the center. In such cases the error bars were often 15 to 30 seconds of arc so included many possible galaxies for the center one. Some clusters have no core galaxy making such a hunt futile.

The image contains 3 asteroids. I've noted them in the annotated image. A few edge on galaxies are seen in the image that are good asteroid imposters. I check each out and they all were real galaxies.

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

Related Designations for NGC3346

NGC3356

This galaxy field is located in Leo just north of Sextans border. My main target was NGC 3356 a somewhat distorted spiral galaxy. The nucleus seems south of its center and there's a drawn out arm or plume on the east side. It is just north of a much smaller galaxy. Both are about 300 million light-years distant by redshift. I doubt that little galaxy could have distorted much larger NGC 3356 so what did? NED shows another even smaller galaxy against NGC 2256. Is it really a separate blue galaxy or just a bright star cloud in NGC 3356?

It isn't so much that the southern galaxy is so small but that NGC 3356 is so big. I measure its size at almost 180,000 light-years including the plume or drawn out arm. The southern galaxy is a respectable 23,000 light-years in size.

To the west of NGC 3356 is a quartet of galaxies. At least three of them are likely interacting. The only one to make the NGC list is NGC 3349. It is listed as a WR galaxy. That means its spectrum is dominated by Wolf-Reyet stars. They are massive dying stars. For them to dominate a galaxies spectrum a very large number of massive stars had to have been created at about the same time. They lived their short lives and are now nearing the end of their lives. This likely means the galaxy was a starburst galaxy in the recent past but most of the star-forming activity is now over. Was this starburst triggered by interaction with one or more of the other galaxies? The companion, NSA 137928 has a large faint plume to the north. While the galaxy is mostly red the plume is somewhat blue. Catalogs show it as brighter than NGC 3349 but with more area, it appears fainter. To its south is SDSS J104352.20+064516.2, a very disrupted blue galaxy with a faint core. Its southwestern edge is sharp but the rest is very diffuse. The only distance estimate for it is by the Friend of a Friend method. That just means it appears to be at the same distance as NSA 137928. That appears likely due to the apparent interaction between the two. Did they also interact with NGC 3349 as its WR status might indicate?

The fourth galaxy has no redshift data or any other distance estimate. It probably is a distant galaxy just in the same line of sight but maybe not. I consider it unlikely but possible it is related to the others.

In the lower left part of the image is NGC 3362, a very photogenic SABc galaxy with a Seyfert 2 nucleus. Its redshift puts it only slightly closer than the trio of galaxies including NGC 3349. It would be a great sight if not for its great distance. It too is a very large galaxy. I measure its size as slightly over 145,000 light-years.

NGC 3349 comes in at a more typical 65,000 light-years in size. Its distorted companion is more difficult to measure due to overlap with the southern blue galaxy. I measure its yellow core at only 34,000 light-years but include the plume and it is a huge 160,000 light-years across. The way the blue galaxy fades away makes measuring it difficult. I got very different answers each time. I'll say 41,000 light-years but that's very approximate and assumes it is at the same distance as the other two.

NGC 3349 and NGC 3362 were discovered Albert Marth on March 22, 1865. NGC 3359 was discovered by William Herschel on April 17, 1784. It isn't in either of the H400 observing programs. I can't find I ever looked for it with my 10" scope.

To the lower left of NGC 3362 as a 12th magnitude star with something hiding behind its eastern edge. It appears to be a rather bright galaxy. But neither NED nor SIMBAD have anything there. Looking at the Sloan image there is a large oval yellow object there that appears to be possibly two objects that overlap. But the glare from the star may be a problem. What it is will remain a mystery unless someone finds a better image of the object. Not easy thanks to the foreground star. Another puzzle is ASK 231737.0. It is a third of the way between NGC 3362 and NGC 3356. It looks like a typical galaxy at its distance of 2.54 billion light-years but many catalogs say it is a quasar. Usually, the quasar drowns out the galaxy leaving only a bit of fuzz around the burned out core. Here I see no sign of a usually bright core. Just to its left is another galaxy trying to hide behind a much dimmer star. It didn't escape as did the other hiding object.

Otherwise, the annotated image has the usual assortment of objects including 3 rather dim asteroids.

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

Related Designations for NGC3356

NGC3359

NGC 3359 is a nice barred spiral in Ursa Major about 50 light-years distant (redshift says 53, the Gemini page says 49 and other sources say about the same range). NED classes it as SB(rs)c, while the NGC project says SBc. Both mention it has strong HII emission. So why am I imaging a rather normal galaxy? It isn't as "normal" as it appears. For one it has over 100 large star forming regions, far more than most spiral galaxies and for another, the bar is thought to be only 400 to 500 million years old while the galaxy is likely at least 10 billion years or older. What triggers bar formation is a rather long-standing problem. Once formed do they last or are they temporary? These are still highly debatable subjects. At that distance, I didn't really expect to pick up many of its HII regions as most amateur images fail to pick them up unless blending in H alpha light. I was pleasantly surprised to discover the bigger ones did come through. Though to appreciate the vast number present in this galaxy see the Gemini North image at: http://www.gemini.edu/gallery/v/astronomical_images_and_illustrations/Galaxies/ngc3359v2.jpg.html

Their image is flipped to a mirror image with south (sort of) up and west to the right while my image has north up and west to the right. Theirs is a mirror image that wasn't corrected for display. You can read all about the galaxy at the Gemini link. Another unanswered question not mentioned at the Gemini link is why all the sudden star formation in every corner of the galaxy? There are no nearby galaxies to have triggered it. Nor does it look particularly disturbed yet the bar and likely the HII regions are very young compared to the age of the galaxy.

NGC 3359 was discovered by William Herschel on November 28, 1793. It is in the second H400 program.

There is a smudge of a blue galaxy to the east-northeast of NGC 3359. Could it be involved in some way? It could if it was at the same distance though its mass is too small to cause much interaction unless it has already been stripped of its dust and gas in a close passage a billion years or so ago. It is SDSS J104713.26+631629.2 but NED has no redshift data so it could be too close or too distant to be involved. For now, it is an unknown. Though I see no hint of any tidal connection.

I've noted a galaxy in the upper left corner. NED shows it at 2.7 billion light-years yet it shows some rather obvious spiral structure. NED lists it at 12.6" of arc in size. That would work out to be 165,000 light years in diameter. A pretty big spiral.

The galaxy cluster west and a bit north of NGC 3359 is GMBCG J161.33127+63.27897 it and its anchor galaxy is listed at 4.2 billion light-years measured photographically. It is said to have 8 members but the size, as usual, is not given. Still, there are 4 other fuzzies in the immediate area and a few more a bit further out that are likely its members. Just southwest of it is another cluster, WHL J104515.8+631614, which is listed at 15 members. I see only the anchor galaxy which is listed at magnitude 23.1. Again no size is given. Looks like 23.1 is about the limit in this image.

Continuing with galaxy clusters, WHL J104452.7+631740 is near the right edge. It is listed as having 7 members. No distance is listed for the anchor galaxy which has the same coordinates as the cluster. GMBCG J161.17919+63.24738 is yet another cluster near the west (right) edge of the image. Only the cluster has redshift data but its coordinates match that of the anchoring galaxy. The cluster is said to have 12 members and be 4.4 billion light-years distant. No diameter was given for the cluster. GMBCG J161.15360+63.38777 is in the upper right corner. Its anchor galaxy is very red. While the distances to it and the cluster are slightly different they both round to 4.0 billion light-years. The cluster is listed as having 10 members in an unknown area. Even closer to the top in the right corner is WHL J104444.9+632500. The photographic distance estimate is 4.7 billion light-years with 8 members. The spectroscopic redshift of the BCG, however, shows a distance of 4.4 billion light-years. I assume that is more accurate for the cluster as well as the galaxy. Oddly the galaxy isn't as red as the closer galaxy anchoring the other cluster in that corner.

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

Related Designations for NGC3359