NGC3367

NGC 3367 is a rather messed up barred spiral in Leo north of M105 about 150 million light-years away. To show so much detail at that distance you know it is large, about 115,000 light-years across by my measurements including the faint outer plume on the western side. I say "messed up" due to its rather chaotic spiral structure. At first glance, it looks rather normal but then you find arms start from nothing or branch from others. One ends when it hits a bright edge that appears to be a spiral arm that comes from nowhere. It has one heavy arm on the south side that certainly fits Arp's "One heavy arm" category though didn't make his list. It was discovered by William Herschel on March 19, 1784. It's not in either H400 program.

As I was about to start the image I noted there was a rather large NGC galaxy in The Sky just outside the field of view. I decided to include it so moved NGC 3367 down and west just enough to bring NGC 3377 into the image. Good thing as it turned out quite interesting though wasn't on my to-do list.

It is a large "discy" elliptical galaxy much closer than NGC 3367. Redshift puts it at 47 million light-years but a bunch of non-redshift measurements have a median value of 35 million light-years. Considering how many globular clusters I was able to find in it I'll go with that closer figure. By "discy" I mean it appears to have a disc-like structure inside the elliptical structure. One note at NED agrees and another says there's no hint of a disc. I pointed out some of the globular clusters close to the galaxy though NED listed a lot more further out and seen against the galaxy. Some of the latter weren't even visible in the Sloan image. NED also listed a hundred or more planetary nebulae. After finding some in M31 I looked for them in my image. After not finding them I checked the SLOAN image and couldn't identify any their either. I only tested a half dozen out of more than 100 so a few might be faintly seen. Figuring if SLOAN can't see the ones I checked there was little likelihood I would. This galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on April 8, 1784. It is in the original H400 program. My observation on April 15, 1985 on a humid night with my 10" f/5 using up to 150x reads: "small, oval galaxy., somewhat brighter toward the center but otherwise featureless."

The NED data also included many stars also listed a candidate QSO along with some UvS objects also listed as QSO candidates. Like before some of the stars turned out to be rejected QSOs but none of the UvS objects were rejected. So like before I included the UvS objects but not the stars listed also as QSO candidates. Again there were many dozens of these, far too many to note without making a mess of the annotated image. I suspect either we are severely underestimating the quasars in the universe or, more likely, most of these are really just stars that for some reason show high photographic redshift. Like before none had spectroscopic redshifts. Those that did are marked as being QSOs by NED and on my annotated image.

One rather bright asteroid photobombed the image. Usually one this bright has a common name but this one only has its discovery sequence ID. Details on the annotated image.

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

Related Designations for NGC3367

NGC3423

NGC 3423 is a nice, but rarely imaged, face on, multi-armed, blue spiral in Sextans. NED classes it as SA(s)cd while the NGC project says Sc. It is full of star clouds and HII regions. Redshift puts it about 63 million light-years away while Tully Fisher measurements say it is only 35 million light-years away. I found a crude image made from the few HST frames available for it at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/NGC3423-hst-R606GB450.jpg which seems to have the resolution about what I'd expect for the further distance but as my image starts to bring out the HII regions even without H alpha data I have to suspect it is closer than the redshift indicates. In any case, it is a relatively nearby galaxy. It was discovered by William Herschel on February 23. 1784. It's not in either H400 program.

An asteroid happened to be tracking across its face when I took these frames. Thanks to the bright background of the galaxy the color frames show clearly when normally they'd be lost against the blackness of space for an asteroid of this brightness. There's a second asteroid in the image. Details are on the annotated image. Interestingly enough the red POSS 2 plate picked up an asteroid on almost the same path but it had just cleared the galaxy.

In preparing the annotated image I ran into a lot of very faint, distant galaxies nearly all of which were listed at NED as being ELG which stands for emission line galaxy. I've not seen that before. It's apparently a new addition to their database in some areas of the sky. One near the top of the image right of center is listed with a redshift in excess of 1 which puts it nearly 8 billion light-years distant. For me to pick one up at that distance I have to wonder if it doesn't have an active core that rivals a quasar in brightness. That one is more distant than one listed as a Quasar/AGN on the very left edge of the image. Three of these ELGs are hiding by stars. I drew a line to them to show it wasn't the star that was the ELG. In one case I also had to mark the star they were so closely paired and matched in brightness.

There are several quasar candidates in the image (UvES) as well. Another is a candidate BLAGN which stands for Broad Line Active Galactic Nucleus. As is often the case there was a rather obvious galaxy a bit northwest of NGC 3423 that isn't listed at NED at all. There may be more, it was just the only one I happened across by accident.

For 2013 this one was taken on a "good" night for a change.

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

Related Designations for NGC3423

NGC3424

The Leo Minor Triplet? Everyone seems to know the Draco Triplet but few seem aware of this triplet located in Leo Minor. All three were discovered by William Herschel on December 7, 1885. The northeastern two are in the second Herschel 400 observing program from the Astronomical League which I'd thought would help with its visibility but apparently doesn't.

The 3 NGC galaxies, 3413, 3424 and 3430 are considered part of the NGC 3396 galaxy group. NGC 3396 along with NGC 3395 are Arp 270 a colliding pair of galaxies northwest of this field. I'm not sure why the center of the NGC 3396 group is near NGC 3424. To me, that would make it the NGC 3424 group. But then I'm not in charge of naming these groups. NGC 3396 has a redshift distance of about 88 million light-years, which is about the same as 3430 and 3424 in this image at 86 and 82 million light-years respectively. However, NGC 3413 is only half that distance at 43 million light-years so likely not at all related to the others.

NGC 3413 is a rather star cluster filled S0 galaxy with no well-defined nucleus. I think we are seeing it rather edge on but that might be an illusion and its shape really is a spindle. At 43 million light-years its diameter is about 22,500 light-years, a rather small S0 galaxy. Tully Fisher estimates put it at 56 million light-years.

NGC 3424 is considered a barred spiral seen close to edge on. it seems to have mostly old red stars with some blue regions in the outer spiral arms. I'd like to see it more face on as it looks quite interesting. Tully Fisher estimates put it 96 million light-years distant. Using the redshift value its diameter is a respectable 76,000 light-years.

NGC 3430 is the only one seen rather face on and has a very active spiral structure with lots of star clouds down its spiral arms. It is classed as SAB meaning it has a bar but also has characteristics of a standard spiral galaxy. In this case, the bar is rather short with the normal spiral structure dominating. It's Tully Fisher estimated distance is only slightly further than the redshift distance. Using the redshift distance of 86 million light-years its diameter is 99 million light-years, about the size of our galaxy. To me, it has three major arms which were one of Arp's peculiar categories though one arm splits into two unequal arms.

The annotated image covers what few galaxies in the field had redshift data at NED. The position of NGC 3430A was vague in NED but the fuzz patch I've labeled for it is the only object in the area that meets their other values for it. Its size is only 6,600 light-years making it a tiny dwarf galaxy.

Due to conditions, I tried for this one on two nights. Both were similarly poor transparency so I just combined the two nights worth of luminance data. Clouds moved in and cut short the round of color data the second night leaving me with no blue that night and only one of red and green. Thus I didn't get twice normal color data. Still, I think it works well.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=8x10' RG=3x10' B=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC3424

NGC3433

NGC 3433 Is a spiral galaxy about 140 million light-years away in Leo 2 degrees southeast of M96. At first glance or in short exposures it appears as a quite normal 2 armed grand design spiral. But looking closer there are fainter outer arms that are odd arm segments. This one could have made Arp's split arm category. The main arm going under the south side of the galaxy suddenly ends and two segments begin. One is straight and angled up sharply compared to the path the main arm was taking. The other follows the normal curved path but goes wide as if being pulled from the galaxy and extends much further than any other arm segment. Odd as there's nothing in the field that could have caused this. NED classes it as SA(s)C while the NGC project says Sc I. It was discovered by William Herschel on March 11, 1784. It's not in either H400 program.

There's one other NGC galaxy in the image. It is NGC 3444 toward the left edge. It is an Sbc spiral about 440 million light-years away. It was discovered by Albert Marth on March 25, 1865.

While there are many other galaxies in the image only a very few have any redshift detail. All lie at least twice as far away. There are what appears to be two obvious galaxy clusters on the east side of my image and one on the right side. But Ned shows none on the right side where one appears to be and two pairs on the east side.

The first pair consists of WHL J105239.2+101148 which consists of 15 members with no size given at a distance of about 2.7 billion light-years. The anchor galaxy is shown with a slightly different distance but when rounded to 2 significant digits they appear the same. Thus I show it with 2.7 listed twice. North of it, forming the pair, is ZwCl 1050.0+1030 which gives a size of 17 minutes with 97 members but no distance. It is labeled as being "compact." It would include over half my frame.

The other pair also consists of a larger Zwicky cluster that encompasses a smaller cluster. In this case, the small cluster is GMBCG J163.14180+10.07057 to the south of the previous pair. It is listed as having 11 members at a distance of 2.6 billion light-years. Almost the distance of the other non-Zwicky cluster. It is said to have 11 members. Again no size is provided. In this case, the redshift for the BCG is exactly the same as that of the cluster. This cluster appears to be part of ZwCl 1049.8+1017 with 66 members in a 10 minute diameter area. Again no distance is given.

There are 6 asteroids in the image. The brightest is (13220) Kashiwagura at magnitude 17.3. The naming citation reads: "Mitsuru Kashiwagura (b. 1950), a high school teacher in Ooe, Yamagata Prefecture, has been observing occultations since 1994." It was discovered by T. Okuni on July 1, 1997.

The other asteroids are:
(134218) 2005 UE439 at magnitude 19.9
(116865) 2004 FE98 at magnitude 19.4
2004 FM14 at magnitude 19.0
(87711) 2000 SE33 at magnitude 19.5
(71686) 2000 FU30 at magnitude 18.8

All are labeled in the annotated image. The track of (134218) 2005 UE439 is hard to see as it runs into the southern part of NGC 3443.

As usual, labels on the annotated image are to the right of the object unless a line indicates otherwise. Distances are all in billions of light-years.

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

Related Designations for NGC3433

NGC3434

NGC 3434 is a face on spiral with a very unusual arm structure though at first glance it might not appear that odd. It is classed as Sa(r)b with HII emission by NED. It has no arms coming off the core as a classic spiral would. Instead, the core is surrounded by an oval (almost American football shaped) blue ring. Such a shape usually is caused by a bar but there is no bar. Then coming from the southeast side of the ring is a single spiral arm that circles 1.5 times around the galaxy. Or maybe that arm goes only half way and a new arm coming from the northeast part of the oval ring makes a complete circle with the first arm overlapping the second. The only paper I found considers it a single arm, I'm not quite sure I agree. In any case, it is a strange galaxy once you start to look at it. There are also star clouds in the ring(s) and one between them. The galaxy is about 180 million light-years distant by redshift and is located in the constellation of Leo but the right (30%) side of the image is in Sextans as it is right on the border. It was discovered on January 27, 1786 by William Herschel but isn't in either of the Herschel 400 observing programs.

It has a couple of companions with similar redshift. CGCG 038-37 is a very diffuse spiral to the north. North of that and a bit east is a double galaxy. At least it has two different entries in NED with two slightly different positions and very slightly different redshifts. Visually in my image, it seems to consist of an elongated galaxy and a blue round highly condensed galaxy in the northwestern part. NED, however, shows both as having a 1:4 width to length ratio. Neither has the dimensions of the small spherical galaxy. NED also shows a third object, an Ultraviolet Source with a position between the positions of the two elongated galaxies but with an error circle that doesn't quite reach the blue compact object. Looking at the SLOAN image of this galaxy it does appear it could be two overlapping elongated galaxies. That still leaves the question of the compact blue object. Is it just a huge star cloud in the galaxy? Is this one, two or three galaxies? Wish I knew. I've included the Sloan image.

Other than this oddball object the rest of the annotated image is rather normal though distances to some object are determined by the Friend of a Friend method which assumes they are related to others in the group. That's noted by "FoF" after the distance. Same as photographic redshift noted by a "p" the accuracy of such distances is less reliable than spectroscopic redshift (no label).

This image might seem to have less background than usual. That's because the filter wheel broke during the image. I didn't catch it until the next night and didn't realize it had hit this image. There's a rubber friction band that a capstan drives to turn the wheel. That broke. I'd already taken green and red data lower in the sky then took blue. That all worked but then after the meridian flip to catch the Luminance channel the band broke so the "luminance frames were actually blue frames. I didn't notice this had happened until I went to process the image many months later. In fact, I didn't notice until I was working on the annotated image and noted I'd lost a good magnitude yet conditions were noted as average in my log. Then I looked closely and found the reason the dust mots didn't seem to flat out right for the luminance channel was they were really blue filter dust mots. I'd used the wrong flat. The software just assumed the filter wheel had worked and labeled it as luminance when that wasn't the case. So I'd spent time cloning out those dust mots that were bright and filling in the dark ones with false background when all I needed have done was use the right flat. The combination of all the light loss in the color filters and the fact that most distant galaxies I pick up are reddened by intergalactic dust resulted in the noisier image than normal and loss of a full magnitude. Since this is a really interesting galaxy and field it is back on the reshoot list for next year. At least the galaxy itself is blue so using blue data didn't hurt it as much as it could have. Still, If I'd known this before processing it I'd have used all color frames as well as the "luminance/blue" frames to make a pseudo luminance image which would have better represented the field. I was nearly done with the annotation when I realized what had happened.

The next night I found the wheel was stuck between two filters and wouldn't turn. That lead to the discovery of the broken ring. I tack glued it into the groove and the filter wheel turned just fine positioning correctly. I then called SBIG for a new belt. They said they'd send two. Why two when the first lasted 10 years I don't know but then they never arrived. Seems they all left for NEAF and the belts never got sent. The tack glue job didn't hold long and the belt developed some gaps as it was so rotten it was falling apart. A rubber band would fill in and work for one image but had to be replaced each new image. I finally found one that hung in fairly well. After the SBIG crew returned from NEAF they found my many emails and phone messages and actually sent the belts. No charge even though the camera was 9 years out of warranty.

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

Related Designations for NGC3434

NGC3447

This one reminds me of some floating in space alien with a Men in Black style huge ray gun it's firing at something apparently off-screen. Or maybe I need a long rest.

NGC 3447 is a pair of interacting galaxies in Leo about 65 to 66 million light-years away. NED classes the larger western galaxy as SAB(s)m pec and the smaller eastern galaxy as IB(s)m pec. A Tully-Fisher measurement of them says 65.5 million light-years so there's unusually close agreement. The eastern member is odd in that the western end is full of bright knots of star formation while the eastern end is very diffuse with no visible structure at all. A golden object is seen at the NE edge of the western galaxy. NED shows it as an IR source in the 2MASS catalog and as an HII source in the Hodge+Kennicutt HII regions catalog. While an HII region can harbor new stars and give off a lot of IR the whole thing looks like a distant galaxy to me rather than an object in NGC 3447a. This mess was discovered by John Herschel on March 18, 1836.

SDSS J105329.58+164359.6 the small blue smudge under NGC 3447 at a redshift indicated distance of 63 MLY seems to be a separate dwarf galaxy. NED shows no classification for it. The three form an interesting triple system that has been little studied that I could find.

Near the right edge of my image on the center-line of the image is SDSS J105215.04+164446.4, an IR strong galaxy seen edge on. The southern arm is very finely defined. The northern one seems mostly missing! At 2.3 billion light-years it is tough to see much detail. Still to have a south going arm that size means it is a very large galaxy. The half a galaxy in my image measures 15.6" of arc which at 2.3 billion light-years is 175,000 light-years. That's for its radius or 350,000 for the diameter if the other half is still there. It is faintly seen but very poorly defined. Why the difference?

WHL J105303.8+165221 is a galaxy cluster at 3.1 billion light years but the Big Cluster Galaxy (BCG) at its heart is listed at 2.8 billion light-years. A surprisingly large difference.

ABELL 1126:[QR95] E and ABELL 1126:[QR95] W are listed as two galaxies in the Abell 1126 galaxy cluster with the same exact position but slightly different redshift. I've listed it as G 1.1/1.2 for this reason. To add to the confusion the position of these two? galaxies are almost but not quite the same as the core of the galaxy they seem to pertain to. NED gives the core the designation 2MASX J10535025+1651022/PGC 32713 at 1.1 million light-years which is listed as a spiral oddly enough and as the cD galaxy for the Abell 1226 group. It certainly looks like an elliptical galaxy to me. All this confusion about the cD galaxy for an Abell galaxy cluster seems odd to me. To its southeast is SDSS J105400.83+164843.2, a real spiral that is closer to the core of Abell 1126. Could these two entries be somewhat mixed-up? That galaxy is not categorized by NED at all, odd given its size, brightness and obvious spiral nature.

The Abell 1126 cluster is listed as being 30 minutes in diameter, of richness class 1 (50-79 galaxies) and at a distance of 1.1 billion light-years. The nearby galaxy cluster NSCS J105344+165124 may be part of this cluster. it is said to contain 22 members in an unknown area. It too is at 1.1 billion light-years. Another apparent piece of the Abell cluster is WHL J105415.1+165134. All I see at its position is a rather large and bright (magnitude 17.6) galaxy. It is only labeled with the G/GC label. NED lists it as having 15 members in an undefined area.

GMBCG J163.19257+16.60930 is a galaxy cluster in the lower right part of my image. It is listed with 65 members but with no size. It's position is within 1" of the BCG for the cluster. The BCG's spectral redshift puts it at 4.2 billion light-years. The photographic redshift for the cluster says 4.1 billion light-years. To its southwest is another galaxy cluster, NSCS J105243+163554. Nothing is seen at its center. It is said to contain 27 galaxies at 4.4 billion light-years. No size is given. WHL J105238.1+163600 is likely another name for this cluster though with yet a different center and core galaxy though the two vary by about 1" of arc. It too is 4.4 billion light-years and consists of 47 members in an undefined area. So are all three really one cluster? In any case, there's a lot of faint fuzzies in a band through the lower right part of my image.

South of these clusters is GMBCG J163.18556+16.56924. The BCG's redshift is from its spectrum while the cluster's redshift has been photographically determined. This leads to slightly different distances both about 4.7 billion light-years. The cluster is said to contain 17 members and again no size is given.

ZwCl 1051.4+1656 is a galaxy cluster centered south of Abell 1126 but includes it as its diameter is listed at 67 minutes and containing 345 members. No distance is listed. The label is centered on its central position though I see very little at that location.

SDSS J105237.45+164109.0 may be the most distant and faintest object I've picked up in only a 40 minute exposure. NED lists its green magnitude as 24.8 with a redshift of z=4.815960. That, by their 5 year WMAP calculator, puts it at 12.5 billion light-years light travel time. Looking at it on the Sloan images it is actually very red though nothing came through on the color filters at this position, just too much light loss in the filters. This color is not unexpected since the wavelengths of its light are 5.8 times longer than when they left the quasar 12.5 billion years ago. My chip is rather insensitive to red but likely that is what made it visible in my image. You might need to enlarge the image by a factor of 3 or 4 to see the faint smudge but it is there and the center pixel is precisely at the correct position. It is seen in all 4 sub-exposures as well. It is west-southwest of NGC 3447 to the right of a very bright blue star and is labeled Q 12.5.

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

Related Designations for NGC3447

NGC3454

NGC 3454 and NGC 3455 are a pair of galaxies in central Leo. Redshift puts them at 66 million light-years distant. Tully Fisher determinations disagree and put them a bit under 100 million light-years away. I think, in this case, the redshift measurements are likely more reasonable. Assuming the redshift distance NGC 3454 and NGC 3455 are both about 52.5 thousand light years across. If the 100 million light-year figure is used then they are about 80 thousand light-years in size. NGC 3454 was found by John Herschel on March 17, 1831. NGC 3455 was found by William Herschel on March 21, 1784.

One note at NED says: "Bright spindle with plume (NGC 3454), disturbed? by UGC 06028 (NGC 3455)..." while another reads: "Bright bar with knots and dark markings. Faint, smooth, outer arms. Edge-on. Non-interacting pair with NGC 3455 at 3.8 arcmin." So are they or are they not interacting? I found no notes on 3455 referencing the apparently distorted outer arms, especially the western one. About all I can see for a plume in 3454 is the southeastern ansa seems puffier than the northwestern one and seems to be off centerline toward 3455. I'd surmise these features aren't unrelated and some interaction has occurred.

I put these off center to pick up NGC 3443 in the upper right corner. Its redshift is insignificantly different from the other two (I found no non-redshift measurements of its distance) so it is likely a member of the same group. Assuming the same distance it is 50,000 light-years in diameter or 76,000 at the 100,000 light-year distance. It is a rather low surface brightness spiral compared to the first two. It was discovered by Lewis Swift on April 24, 1887.

Also, a likely member of the group is ASK 617911.0 on the left edge of the image. Its redshift is similar. It seems to be quite blue with two odd star clouds NE and SW of the core though the SW one is below the major axis of the galaxy. The other small object just above the SW cloud is most likely a nearby star in our galaxy and not a feature of this dwarf galaxy. It is only about 11,000 light-years in diameter at its redshift distance. There's yet a fifth likely member of this group but my framing missed it. It is about one minute of arc above the upper left corner of my image. It is NGC 3457?/NGC 3460. There's some debate over this object's identity. See the NGC Project entries for these two if interested.

North of the center of the image is an oddly distorted spiral galaxy that's small in angular size but rather bright in its core though the outer arms are very faint. NED's only identification of it is SDSS J105353.23+173041.6. Since it didn't have a redshift distance it wasn't labeled in the annotated image.

Due to lousy weather, this one was taken over two consecutive nights. The first night was clouded out after 4 luminance frames. The second night I started again to take the color data but discovered I was taking more luminance instead. I stopped the run and restarted it for color data. By then it was too late to get a complete new object so I decided to take 4 more luminance frames with the time remaining not trusting those I'd gotten the first night. At the time I didn't realize there was a very bright asteroid in the field. Turns out I picked it up both nights. Due to the gap between the first and second luminance frame, it made three trails in the top of the image. The asteroid, discovered by the German astronomer Joseph Helffrich in 1910 and apparently named after the far more famous Italian astronomer Galileo (is Galilea the German spelling of Galileo?) The naming of early asteroids is covered by a copyrighted book so the Minor Planet Center can't give out that information. So this is only a guess on my part. Does anyone have better info?

There's a 20th magnitude asteroid in the image which I show in the annotated version. Since it shows in only 4 (in only the first night's images) of the 9 frames it is nearly invisible in a mean stack of the data though very obvious in the raw data. It barely shows up due to this and the rather poor transparency that first night.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=9x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC3454

NGC3486

NGC 3486 is a multi-fragmented arm spiral in western Leo Minor about 45 million light-years distant. It has a very bright core but faint arms. NED classes it as SAB(r)c and a Seyfert 2 galaxy with HII emission. The NGC Project says simply Sc. Assuming the 45 million light-year distance I measure it at about 93,000 light-years in diameter. The HII regions came through surprisingly well for that distance even though I used no Hydrogen Alpha data to help bring them out (the pink spots). At first glance, it appears to be a grand design spiral but then you realize the arms are just fragments taking it out of that classification which needs complete, well-defined arms.

It was discovered by William Herschel on April 11, 1785. It is in the first H400 program. My log from April 15, 1985 on a fair but humid night with my 10" f/5 at up to 150x reads: "Small, faint, slightly uneven splotch of a galaxy. It seems slightly brighter toward the center. It seems to change shape from circular to 'S" shaped with averted vision." Sounds like I was seeing only the center with direct vision and maybe a hint of the inner arms with averted vision. I never looked at it again, or at least never logged it again so I don't know if the night's humidity was taking a toll on the transparency.

To the upper left of NGC 3486 is the rather odd looking galaxy VV 515. The VV catalog only lists multiple galaxies. In this case three of them. Unfortunately, NED doesn't give the position of the three, just of the group so I can't tell you which parts are considered separate galaxies.

I listed the catalog name of all galaxies with redshift data that had a name other than one that was just its coordinates. The two with question marks beside them weren't in NED even though this field is well covered by the Sloan Survey data. Again, I just happened across them so it is likely others were missed as well. There are several galaxy clusters around bright cluster galaxies. Most used the same photographic data (p) for the distance to both the galaxy and the cluster. When this happened I listed only one distance. In the case where there were two determinations, one of which was spectroscopic and different both are listed with the first being the cluster distance and the second the distance to the anchoring galaxy. Likely the spectroscopically determined redshift is most accurate for both the galaxy and cluster.

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

Related Designations for NGC3486

NGC3501

NGC 3501 attracted my attention as it is a neat flat galaxy being #1187 in the Flat Galaxy Catalog. It is classified as Scd by NED and Seligman but the NGC project says Sc. I suppose this difference is partly due to the difficulties of classifying a galaxy seen edge on. Note the lack of any hint of a central bulge. Since there is an apparent correlation between the size of the central bulge and the size of the black hole in a spiral's core it would appear this galaxy has a very small black hole. Also, I saw a recent article saying galaxies without a central bulge have had few if any mergers. I'm not sure I buy that one. The galaxy is located in Leo and is about 68 million light-years distant by redshift and 78 million light-years by the median of many Tully Fisher measurements. Using the redshift distance I get a size of about 80,000 light-years. The galaxy was discovered on April 23, 1881 by Édouard Stephan. I'm surprised William Herschel missed it.

When I saw I could fit the face on spiral NGC 3507 in the same frame I changed my aim point to include both galaxies. NED classifies it as SB(s)b LINER. Others agree. It certainly is a classic two arm barred spiral. Redshift puts it 61 million light-years distant while two Tully-Fisher measurements say 52 million light-years. Since it is likely these two are related though not interacting I assume they are both about the same distance. Using the redshift distance I get a size of 59,000 light-years. Seen face on it gives the illusion of being larger than NGC 3501 which is not true. This galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on March 14, 1784 which makes it all the more surprising he missed NGC 3501. This galaxy is in the second Herschel 400 observing program. The annotated image points out what is likely a star cloud in the galaxy. It is quite blue so likely full of massive, hot, young stars. It is listed only as Part of a Galaxy by NED.

Near the lower right corner near the right edge is ASK 619400.0. In my poorly resolved image (seeing was poor this night) it seems to have two blue blobs at the top and a red one to the south. Indeed, the Sloan image shows this is a group of three overlapping galaxies. What I can't find out is if they are interacting or even related. NED gives the trio a redshift of 1.16 billion light-years but is this true of all parts or just the brightest one. If this is about to be a major collision, things could get interesting in a few million years. I've included the much clearer Sloan image. It may be just two galaxies rather than three. Hard to tell but looks to me like the right one is in front of the main galaxy with the other behind.

Three asteroids show faintly in the image. Due to poor seeing, they are rather faint and fuzzy. Details are in the annotated image. 2016 EW80 was just discovered this year. I took this image on March 12. I note the position given by the Minor Planet Center is off by several seconds of arc. Usually, they are quite accurate. They are asking for observations of it starting April 17. Their last observation was March 10, just two days before my image was taken. The orbit was determined by a 35 day arc so it was likely found in early February.

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

Related Designations for NGC3501

NGC3504

NGC 3504 and NGC 3512 are two interesting near face-on spiral galaxies in eastern Leo Minor near the border of Leo and Ursa Major. Both are considered by some to have starburst cores but NED makes no mention of this in its classifications. These are two rather photogenic galaxies mostly ignored by the amateur imaging community. I didn't find even one image of these at Astrobin or the Cloudy Nights imaging forums. Both were discovered by William Herschel on April 11, 1785. NGC 3504 is in the original H400 observing program. I saw NGC 3504 on April 15, 1985 on a night hurt by high humidity. Using my 10" f/5 at up to 150 power my entry reads "Large, circular galaxy with a brighter nucleus. Nearby 14th magnitude star on top of the galaxy near its edge. Little detail was seen." Sound like I was seeing the outer ring? I'd think that too faint. So why the circular comment. At least I got the star right as I measure it on my image at 14th magnitude. But it's at the edge of the elongated bar, not the ring. Another case of needing Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine. I made no mention of NGC 3512 for some reason. Maybe the night was too poor to see it.

NGC 3512 appears a more normal classic spiral but NED indicates it has elements of a barred galaxy. It too has a starburst core by papers I saw. Its two main arms are not at all symmetrical. The core seems off center to the ring they form in its central region.

There are a number of candidate quasars in the image. Most seem to have spectroscopic distance measurements that should be accurate. If so I suspect that they will eventually achieve confirmed status. Most catalogs already have decided they are.

Otherwise, the background galaxies are pretty much what I get in this part of the sky. Transparency wasn't what it was a few weeks earlier so fewer very distant (over 5 billion light-years look back distance) galaxies are seen. Several NED indicated were bright enough for me to catch on a typical night just didn't come through the gunky night's skies. Knowing it a bit gunky I used 50 minutes of luminance rather than 40 but I needed more to compensate for the lower transparency.

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

Related Designations for NGC3504