NGC3521

NGC 3521 is a very disturbed flocculent spiral galaxy in Leo about 35 million light-years distant. Redshift can be rather misleading giving a distance of 54 million light-years. NED gives it a classification of SAB(rs)bc;HII LINER while the NGC Project just notes it as Sb with H II emission. I didn't pick up any H II emission in my image. Deep images show a lot more to this galaxy than I was able to pick up. I took about 6 times the data used here, nearly all the color data was unusable as was 18 of the 22 luminance frames. The last 12 months have been by far the worst for imaging since I moved here 7 years ago. Actually, all color was unusable by normal standards. I just used the best single frame of each color as using more just made things worse no matter what I did. While I blame weather it was only half guilty. The other half of frames lost were due to a very bright aurora going on two of those nights that fogged the luminance frames and made the color balance awful. No amount of normalization could handle the frame differences which ranged from 450 (120 is normal) background to over 31,000 thanks to that aurora I slept through. If conditions ever improve I'll try again.

Most sources attribute all the plumes due to the remains of several dwarf galaxies it has consumed. One dwarf MGC 0016030 (near the western edge of my frame) has the same redshift so is likely a companion that has survived (so far). Because of my very weak color data, these plumes are in mono only as the clouds and aurora drown out any hope of color data for these faint features. Due to better than average seeing on the 4 luminance frames, I did use I was able to pull out a lot of detail right to the core of the galaxy. Much of the detail is "fogged" by all the scattered stars in its halo from galaxies it has consumed. Only a narrow region on the west (right) side is mostly clear of this "fog". This is why the contrast suddenly improves in a small area. Really makes it look strange. My processing cut through this "fog" to bring out as much of the flocculant nature as I could. If I could have used all 22 frames then I'd likely have processed for the plumes instead. It was discovered by William Herschel on February 22, 1784. It is in the original H400 program. My log entry from April 16, 1985 on a fair but humid night at up to 150x with my 10" f/5 reads: "Large, tilted spiral with a brilliant starlike nucleus. Some hints of detail the outer arms. A good galaxy." But I can't find that I ever looked at it again.

CGCG 141-072 is oddly classed as a dwarf irregular galaxy. Looks like a barred spiral to me that has nice plumes coming off both arms. At over 10 times the distance of NGC 3521, it is small but not dwarf size. To its north is LEDA 135771. It too is classed as a dwarf irregular. This time it makes perfect sense. It is at the right distance and size to be a dwarf companion of NGC 3521. Is it next to be consumed?

MGC 0015934 is classed as Sc. I don't have sufficient resolution at a half billion light years to say if that is reasonable. Looks tighter than that but this may be due to my resolution.

2dFGRS N368Z219 to the southeast is one strange galaxy. It has a very blue bright core with faint, somewhat spiral plumes or arms. Again, my color data missed these plumes. The Sloan image shows these as the same blue color as the core. NED makes no attempt to classify it nor any other galaxy in the image.

Arp liked to find significance in quasars near disturbed galaxies thinking they were nearby objects ejected by these galaxies. A theory he never could support to the satisfaction of the astronomy community but he never gave up. I can't find that he used this one in support of his ideas even though it has far more quasars than average and is highly disturbed.

Near the lower left corner is the rather common galaxy 2dFGRS N368Z212. I'd not mention it but noticed its redshift distance by NED's 5 year WMAP calculation is 666 million light-years. Is it the home of "The Beast"? I was annotating this when a character made the news resigning from his job because his W2 carried the processing number of 666.

NED listed a ton of very faint galaxies with redshift data. I listed a couple down to 23rd magnitude but omitted about 100 of them as not worth the effort.

There are two very short asteroid trails that are noted in the annotated image. They are likely short because they are at the end of their retrograde motion and about to begin normal eastward motion across the sky after we have passed them.

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

Related Designations for NGC3521

NGC3583

NGC 3583 is a barred spiral, SB(s)b, in Ursa Major about 110 million light-years from us. It would fit Arp's category for spiral galaxies with a high surface brightness companion on its arm. Sometimes the companion was a true companion but most of the time either we still don't know or it wasn't a true companion. This time however it is a true companion and he didn't include it. Both have about the same redshift indicating they are related. Most sources NED notes call it an E0 galaxy. I find that odd on two counts. First E0 should be spherical and it is distinctly oval. Also, most E0 galaxies are rather red this one is blue though when IR is added to the mix by the Sloan survey it turns white. Still the wrong color. While it doesn't appear to be interacting I can't help but wonder if its shape indicates interaction has occurred, likely in the distant past. Something has to have triggered strong star formation in the last billion years or so for it to have this blue tint. NGC 3583 was discovered by William Herschel on February 5, 1788. It is in the second H400 program.

On the other side is what to me appears to be a bright knot in NGC 3583's western arm. I have indicated this knot with a question mark. NED considers it a separate galaxy rather than a part of the galaxy. No papers I find mention it however as being another companion. They only refer to the E0 and NGC 3577 5 minutes to the southwest. I still think it part of the galaxy until more data comes in.

West of NGC 3583 is the galaxy cluster GMBCG J168.46640+48.31697. In this case, the distance to the cluster it shows as being estimated photographically while the BCG that anchors the cluster and is highly visible in my image doesn't carry this note. Their distances vary though not by much. I've listed both though I feel the difference is due to the difference in error bars between these two measurement methods. The cluster is listed as having 11 members with no cluster radius given. It is 3.5 to 3.6 billion light-years away depending on which estimate you believe.

Southwest of NGC 3583 is NGC 3577. It too is a barred spiral, SB(r)a by NED and SBb by the NGC project. Arms seem too spread out for NED's classification so I prefer that of the NGC project. It is what I call a lawn sprinkler galaxy. The bar is long and thin like my old walking lawn sprinkler which spun at high speed and when viewed out my second story window had water going out in a spiral much like the arms of this galaxy. It too seems to have a companion on its arm to the northeast. In this case, however, I think it likely it is a very distant galaxy. Unfortunately, there's no redshift data to settle the issue. The companion is SDSS J111346.01+481650.8. NGC 3577, at 250 million light-years, is over twice as far away as NGC 3583 so they are unrelated, they just share nearly the same line of sight as seen from earth. NGC 3577 was discovered by William Herschel on April 1, 1788. It isn't in either H400 program.

NGC 3577 does have a real companion, MCG +08-21-004, also at 250 million light-years. It too is a barred spiral and a very blue one. NED, however, doesn't classify it or give any more detail on it. Could it have interacted with NGC 3577? Yes, but that doesn't mean it has. It has a shape similar to a couple Arp put in his integral sign class though, like them, I see only a very remote similarity to the sign. How or why Arp missed this three for one field I don't know.

To the northwest of NGC 3583 is SDSS J111345.41+482405.4, a dwarf galaxy at 100 million light-years. It could possibly be related to NGC 3583 though I saw nothing indicating this. Since I'm rounding and these distances are estimates they could be considerably closer than the 10 million light-year difference would indicate.

Southeast of NGC 3583 is another galaxy cluster, GMBCG J168.76711+48.22342. In this case, both the galaxy and BCG have photographic redshift measurements which agree. Likely because it is a single measurement. It shows it to be 4.7 billion light-years distant with 8 members. No radius is given. To its northeast is another cluster, GMBCG J168.85254+48.25542 at 4.6 billion light-years. The galaxy just to its north is likely much closer and not part of the cluster though a few other fuzzies in the area could be members. NED shows it with 12 members but again, no radius.

Yet another galaxy cluster is in the lower right corner, GMBCG J168.17596+48.17003 consists of 8 members again in an unknown radius. Its photographic redshift shows a distance of 4.7 billion light-years.

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

Related Designations for NGC3583

NGC3607

The NGC 3607 group consists mostly of elliptical or elliptical-like galaxies with spirals limited to the edges. It is about 50 to 70 million light-years away and located in the hindquarters of Leo the Lion. The entire group doesn't fit my field. I was going to center on NGC 3607 but the two spirals well to the south caught my eye. I couldn't quite fit NGC 3608 in and them too without rotating my camera. As it was -30C the night I took this and I don't have an electrical rotator that didn't happen. Ellipticals aren't often as interesting as spirals so I opted to cut off the elliptical. Also, I couldn't quite fit in NGC 3599 an SA0: member of the group that was just too far west and still fit in PGC34493 which seemed more interesting to me though a lot smaller. The f/8 version of this scope came out several years after I bought the f/10 version. It would have had the field I need. Consult the annotated image for other galaxies in the 50 to 70 million light-year range for others in the group.

Note the near starlike ASK 623471.0 seen in the eastern halo of NGC 3607. Assuming it and NGC 3607 are both about 60 million light-years away it is only 2,600 light-years across compared to at least 90 million light-years for NGC 3607 that appears about to devour it. Perspective may make it seem they are close. One may well be several million light-years closer or further than the other.

The field is only about 12 degrees above the ecliptic. I had expected an asteroid or two in the image. All I got were a couple pieces of space junk I processed out.

The 3 NGC galaxies were discovered by William Herschel on March 14, 1784.

NGC 3607 and NGC 3608 are in the original H400 program. I observed them on April 16, 1985 with my 10" f/5 at 50x and 160x on a night hampered by high humidity. I say of 3607 "Round galaxy, rapidly brightening toward the center. No detail seen. In the same high power field with NGC 3608." Of NGC 3608 my log entry reads "Similarly to 3607 but smaller. They form a conspicuous pair." Apparently, I wasn't much into featureless elliptical galaxies 33 years ago any more than I am today. Oddly I didn't mention NGC 3605 even though it must have been seen. It is in the second Herschel 400 program. I know I logged it but the log from those vanished during the move up here. So did the original 400 log but I'd moved it into an early computer, a Heathkit IBM PC clone and the ASCII copy of that file is still in my present computer. I never digitized the second list. I was going to but that never happened before both original logs were lost.

There are three blue, very low surface brightness blobs of a galaxy in the image. NED had little on them, not even a distance estimate. Are they part of the group? I have no way to know. I've identified them on the annotated image even without any distance data.

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

Related Designations for NGC3607

NGC3614

The barred spiral galaxy, NGC 3614 is located in Ursa Major nearly 10 degrees below the bowl of the Big Dipper portion of the constellation. It is a huge spiral that I measure to be some 170,000 light-years across thanks to the distorted arm on the eastern (left) side. Some sources say it is not barred but it certainly looks barred to me and that's what NED considers it classifying it as SAB(r)c though the NGC Project calls it simply Sc. The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on February 5, 1793 but is in neither of the two Herschel 400 observing programs. Its surface brightness is much fainter than my image would indicate as I stretched it considerably more than usual to bring out its spiral structure. I doubt it is an easy target for visual observers unless they are using a 10" or larger scope under very good skies.

It has a couple small dwarf companions as shown in the annotated image. Though NGC 3614A is not a companion as its redshift puts it over 2.6 times further away. It is listed as a Magellanic barred spiral though it looks more like a mess to my eye. At the time of the VV catalog, it was considered a possible companion to NGC 3614 but redshift shows that isn't the case. As a Magellanic spiral, it is rather large. I get a size of 78,000 light-years thanks to the rather separated star clouds at its southern end. If it is a barred spiral as its classification says then it is very non-symmetrical with a strong bar to the south and none I can see going north. In any case, it is a low surface brightness galaxy. It appears to have its own dwarf companions. ASK 346540.0 to the west-southwest and ASK 345024.0 further due west.

The annotated image shows that many of the other galaxies fall into two groups, one at about 880 million light-years and another at about 1.450 billion light-years. Neither group seemed to be identified at NED that I found unless the centers lie outside my field. I didn't check for that possibility.

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

Related Designations for NGC3614

NGC3631

The supernova 2016bau was discovered by Ron Arbour in the galaxy Arp 27, also known as NGC 3631, on the night of March 13, 2016UT. The galaxy is located in Ursa Major about 60 to 70 million light-years from earth. I measure the supernova at magnitude 15.1. I originally took a picture of this galaxy in 2010. It is a type 1b supernova, a massive star that explodes long after losing its outer envelope of hydrogen.

I used a current two luminance frame image to get the SN and merged that into the 2010 image. The result isn't great but it will have to do. I can't get the SN to blow again for me.

LX200R @ f/10, LRGB=2x10' RGB=2x10' (L cut short by clouds), STL-11000XM Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC3631

NGC3640

NGC 3640 is a very large elliptical galaxy in southeastern Leo about 77 million light-years from us. The ecliptic passes less than a degree away so I expected a lot of asteroids but only 5 were bright enough for me to point them out and most were barely bright enough. The sky was unusually bright with airglow limiting how faint I could go.

NGC 3640 appears rather disturbed, maybe by NGC 3641 just below it though redshift would argue otherwise. So do the two papers that mention the pair. Both look disturbed to my eye. NGC 3640 has faint plumes that spread in many directions. These may be due to galaxies it has already devoured. While I found papers on this galaxy none seemed interested in this aspect of it. One paper says NGC 3640 may have a faint tilted disk another says it is a fast oblate rotator. NGC 3641 seems to have been pulled in the direction of NGC 3460 but this is most likely an illusion due to the overlap of NGC 3640's outer region. Most papers I saw refer to it as a fairly regular elliptical. The bright region certainly is but beyond that lies a lot of faint red stars that give it a very irregular, almost lumpy appearance. To the northwest, it has a rather sharp cutoff with a faint hint of stars beyond. Other directions don't show this sharp edge but just fade away. This made determining its size difficult but setting an arbitrary level of 10 ADU above background I get a diameter of about 150,000 light-years. It varies a bit depending on what diameter you choose to measure but this is about the average.

NGC 3640 was discovered by William Herschel on February 23, 1784 and is in the original Herschel 400 program. It obviously didn't impress me visually as my log from a humid hurt night with my 10" f/5 on April 16, 1985 at 60 and 100 power is short and not very helpful. It reads "Small round galaxy, brighter toward the center." That may be my shortest entry of the 400. I was only seeing the bright central region. I'm sure the humidity is partly to blame but suspect I'd need a bigger scope to see much more no matter how good the night.

The other two NGC galaxies, NGC 3641 and NGC 3643 were discovered by Albert Marth on March 22, 1865. NGC 3641 was described as "faint, very small, almost stellar." NGC 3643 as "extremely faint, very small." He likely was only seeing the very cores of these.

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

Related Designations for NGC3640

NGC3646

NGC 3646 is a very peculiar spiral galaxy in Leo. Its inner spiral structure is that of a normal flocculent spiral but the outer structure is chaotic at best. One note at NED reads: "...The spiral pattern is very odd. One spiral arm emerges from the SE end of the inner disk and turns counterclockwise. Another emerges from the NW side of the inner disk and turns clockwise. These two arms appear to merge on the SW side of the galaxy, joining in a point. The arm structure on the west side is very well defined, and HSB, with many bright knots. On the east side, the arms are diffuse and patchy, with fewer knots. There is an LSB outer disk on the west side. The referee suggests, and we agree, that this may be an example of a galaxy with visible leading and trailing arms." I'm not sure I see the bi-directional arms but two certainly meet at a point on the southwest side.

Another note has a somewhat different view: "The morphology of NGC 3646 is peculiar, as if the result of an encounter. The outer spiral pattern cannot be traced even as to the sense of direction, but the inner spiral pattern is regular. NGC 3646 forms a physical pair with NGC 3649 (SBa; not in the RSA) at an angular separation of 8'. The redshifts from the catalog of Karachentsev (1987) are v_o(3646) = 4227 km/s and v_o(3649) = 4322 km/s. At the mean redshift distance of 85 Mpc (H = 50), the projected linear separation is 200 kpc. However, there is no indication of morphological distortion in the spiral pattern of NGC 3649. The peculiar outer ring structure in NGC 3646 here cannot be attributed to interaction with NGC 3649.

"NGC 3649 is much smaller in angular diameter than NGC 3646. The diameters are 80" for NGC 3649 and 260" for the outer ring of NGC 3646. Note that the inner part of NGC 3646 resembles a normal Sbc spiral of the same size as NGC 3649. The linear diameter of this inner part is 33 kpc - a normal value for most RSA spirals. However, the outer ring of NGC 3646 has a linear diameter of 107 kpc, which is abnormally large.

"The fact that the inner image of NGC 3646 has a normal morphology and is of normal size suggests that the ring is a result of a dynamical process such as the dropping of one galaxy through another, as postulated by Theys and Spiegel (1976, 1977) and by Lynds and Toomre (1976) in other ring galaxies. The abnormal velocity field and an early comment on the large linear diameter of the ring are given by Burbidge, Burbidge, and Prendergast (1961)."

HSB=High Surface Brightness, LSB=Low Surface Brightness, RSA=Revises Shapley-Ames Catalog of Bright Galaxies. A parsec is 3.26 light-years so a diameter of 107 kpc translates to almost 350 thousand light-years. But the article places it further away than today's estimates. At 210 million light years the diameter is about 265,000 light years, still very large.

I think the idea it is the result of some sort of interaction is quite likely correct. I wonder if a merger is involved rather than a collision as I find no bullet in the area. Also, there are some odd plumes. One to the southwest is just visible toward the orange star. Others come off the northeast side and are more easily seen. Maybe someone who can put dozens of hours into this one can find traces of looping plumes that would pretty well cinch the merger idea or not find them thus giving more weight to a fast interaction being the cause. NGC 3646 was discovered by William Herschel on February 15, 1784. It is in the second H400 program.

NGC 3649, while called a companion has a somewhat different redshift and appears rather normal. As the notes say, it is not interacting with NGC 3646 nor does it appear to have done so in the past. Redshift puts it at 240 million light-years while NGC 3646 has a redshift distance of 210 million light-years. Tully-Fisher distance estimates place it 174 to 203 million light-years away with the more modern measurements favoring the shorter distance. The pair are located in Leo. NED classes NGC 3646 as SA:(r)bc pec (ring). The NGC Project uses the simpler classification of Sc I. Irregular or peculiar it certainly is different yet one Arp didn't include. It would have fit his miscellaneous category, I'd think. NGC 3649 is classed SB(s)a by NED and S0 by the NGC project. I can't rationalize S0 for this obvious spiral galaxy. It has two sets of arms much like NGC 3646. One set tight to the core and outer arms that form a ring structure about it giving it a Saturn-like appearance. NGC 3649 was discovered by William Herschel the same February night as NGC 3646. It isn't in either H400 program.

The galaxy cluster at the top of my image, left of center has oddly differing redshift data for the cluster and the BCG anchoring it. Both are labeled as photographic which isn't as accurate as spectroscopic measurements. This may account for the difference. The cluster is WHL J112213.1+201752. NED shows it as containing 14 galaxies but gives no diameter. Toward the eastern side near the middle is another cluster with a different redshift (again both photographic) for the anchor galaxy. Though in this case the difference is small and not seen in the two significant digits I use for annotated images. That cluster is WHL J112242.1+200748 and has only 4 members in an undefined area.

While NED lists thousands of galaxies in my image except for these two cluster anchoring galaxies as well as the two NGC galaxies, none have redshift data. Hardly made the annotated image worth it. But I started it before discovering the lack of data. I'm including it anyway.

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

Related Designations for NGC3646

NGC3652

NGC 3675 is a beautiful but rarely imaged flocculent galaxy in Ursa Major. By redshift, it is about 46 million light-years distant. Other measurements, mostly Tully-Fisher, range from 41 to 65 million light-years. The one claimed to be most accurate in a 2009 paper says 54 million light-years. I found little agreement beyond this. It is classed as SA(s)b;HII LINER. I'm a bit puzzled over the HII as the only note at NED mentioning HII said the regions were less than 2" across and indicated they considered them a minor feature. It is tilted rather strongly toward an edge on view. This means we see the dust lanes on the near side much better than those of the far side. In fact, the galaxy has a large halo that further hides the far side from view. I've applied considerable processing to this region to bring out detail usually hidden by the halo in the few images of this galaxy I found on the net. Even the Sloan Survey image has difficulty with detail of the far side. The core seems to have no real bulge. It even appears recessed as if the flocculent arms and dust lanes extend further above and below the disk's plane than does the core. This is likely an illusion due to my processing to bring out spiral structure right to the very center, but one I can't seem to shake.

My reason for imaging it is the odd outer dust lane on the east side as well as the extensive outer faint regions. Are they plumes? Most images fail to show the outer regions with many stopping at the dust band not even realizing it is a band rather than the edge of the galaxy yet it is bright enough to show color rather well.

It was discovered by William Herschel on January 14, 1788. It is in the original H400 program. My log for that dated May 4, 1984 on an excellent night with a 12.5" f/5 scope at up to 150x reads: " Interesting tilted spiral, much detail seen in the arms. Starlike nucleus. 11th magnitude. A very good object!!"

There's a really strange galaxy above NGC 3675. It is SDSS J112622.06+434124.4. It has one arm on the east side mostly detached from the core. There's nothing on it in the literature. I'd love to see what Hubble's view of it would be. There are several galaxy clusters in the image. The one due east of NGC 3675 is WHL J112649.0+433441. The BCG is listed at 4.05 billion light-years but the cluster with the same location has a photographically determined redshift of 4.25 billion light-years. I consider the former more likely the more reasonable estimate. To the west and a bit, north is the 22 member group WHL J112459.4+433810. Right near the northwest end of NGC 3675 is the small 7 member group WHL J112557.7+433919. Virtually my entire field is covered by ZwCl 1122.8+4351. It is listed as being 19 minutes across and containing 99 members. Its morphology is listed as open which means it lacks any pronounced concentration of galaxies. Yet another cluster is centered just off the east edge of my image. Several of its members are in the frame so I drew a line to indicate where the center is just a few pixels beyond the edge of the image. The cluster is GMBCG J171.91396+43.71478. The BCG is listed at 2.5 billion light-years with the cluster's photographic distance at 2.6. Again, the photographic determination is usually less accurate so I went with the 2.5 figure in the image.

The vast majority of galaxies in the field had no redshift values at NED. All that did are listed in the annotated image.

I see by the current Astronomy Magazine the term "flocculent galaxy" was coined by Debra Meloy Elmegreen the current president of the American Astronomical Society. I didn't realize it was such a new term. (Edit: This was written on July 2, 2012)

I've also included the Sloan Survey image of this galaxy. It was the only image I found on the net that indicated there was more to the galaxy than all the other images I found were showing.

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

Related Designations for NGC3652

NGC3655

NGC 3655 is a near face-on spiral in the hindquarters of Leo the Lion about 83 to 99 million light-years from us. Though I found distances ranging from 45 to 125 million light-years. Determining distance to galaxies isn't easy. It was discovered by William Herschel on December 30, 1783. It is in the original H 400 program. My log from April 16, 1985 with my 10" f/5 on a humidity hurt night at 100x reads: "Very small, faint, evenly bright, round, puffball of a galaxy. It looks much like a planetary nebula without a central star. About 1' in diameter. Note the preliminary guide says it is in Ursa Major which is not correct." The galaxy has a foreground star east of the nucleus that in a low-resolution image fooled me into thinking it had a double core according to my notes of why I imaged it. The other reason being it is one of the H400 galaxies I can reach from my latitude but the mistaken double core likely pushed it higher in priority.

Turns out while the galaxy wasn't as interesting as I expected the field has some strange galaxies as well as interacting galaxies. To the lower left of NGC 3655 is ASK 623321.0. It has a strangely elongated spiral arm. To its upper right is what appears to be two interacting galaxies.

North of NGC 3655 is a pair of galaxies that may be interacting. Only ASK 625768.0 has a redshift value I could find. Are they just line of sight like the previous pair or actually interacting? I found nothing on them.

To the upper right of NGC 3655 is another possible pair of interacting galaxies. The pair is known as LEDA 1514261. They mark the core of a galaxy group. But while the group and ASK 623348.0 share the same coordinates NED places them over 1 billion light-years apart. The distance to the cluster is not spectroscopically based while that of the lone galaxy likely is. Could the photographically determined redshift be that much in error? There are obviously two other galaxies in this tight group. One an edge on galaxy and the other a slightly elongated elliptical galaxy between ASK 623348.0 and the edge-on galaxy. I couldn't find it in either NED or SIMBAD.

Near the left edge is an odd object. It is labeled SDSS J112353.72+163806.5 and SDSS J112352.97+163802.7. The Sloan image indicates the first is two objects, a small red oval galaxy and an elongated sliver of a galaxy. The west end of which carries the other ID given above. It may be a star cloud at the far end of the first galaxy or an entirely separate object. I tend to vote for the latter. But no redshift data leaves a lot of possibilities. The GALEX satellite saw this object but its resolution was low. It's hard to know what it was seeing. Its coordinates point to the low luminosity region between the two but the error circle is big enough to cover all objects here.

Below this object or objects is SDSS J112353.89+163701.2. If you look closely you can see it is surrounded by a much larger very faint fuzzy disk. The Sloan image shows it to have a very faint highly fragmented set of arms that make up the fuzz seen in my image.

Any of the Sloan images can be seen at any of many Sloan websites by entering the coordinates given by the name. Thus for SDSS J112353.89+163701.2 just enter the RA of 11 23 53.89 and declination of +16 37 01.1 and select an image scale. One page you can use is http://skyserver.sdss.org/dr9/en/tools/chart/chart.asp

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

Related Designations for NGC3655

NGC3675

NGC 3675 is a beautiful but rarely imaged flocculent galaxy in Ursa Major. By redshift it is about 46 million light-years distant. Other measurements, mostly Tully-Fisher, range from 41 to 65 million light-years. The one claimed to be most accurate in a 2009 paper says 54 million light-years. I found little agreement beyond this. It is classed as SA(s)b;HII LINER. I'm a bit puzzled over the HII as the only note at NED mentioning HII said the regions were less than 2" across and indicated they considered them a minor feature. It is tilted rather strongly toward an edge on view. This means we see the dust lanes on the near side much better than those of the far side. In fact the galaxy has a large halo that further hides the far side from view. I've applied considerable processing to this region to bring out detail usually hidden by the halo in the few images of this galaxy I found on the net. Even the Sloan Survey image has difficulty with detail of the far side. The core seems to have no real bulge. It even appears recessed as if the flocculent arms and dust lanes extend further above and below the disk's plane than does the core. This is likely an illusion due to my processing to bring out spiral structure right to the very center; but one I can't seem to shake.

My reason for imaging it is the odd outer dust lane on the east side as well as the extensive outer faint regions. Are they plumes? Most images fail to show the outer regions with many stopping at the dust band not even realizing it is a band rather than the edge of the galaxy yet it is bright enough to show color rather well.

It was discovered by William Herschel on January 14, 1788. It is in the original H400 program. My log for that dated May 4, 1984 on an excellent night with a 12.5" f/5 scope at up to 150x reads: " Interesting tilted spiral, much detail seen in the arms. Starlike nucleus. 11th manigude. A very good object!!"

There's a really strange galaxy above NGC 3675. It is SDSS J112622.06+434124.4. It has one arm on the east side mostly detached from the core. There's nothing on it in the literature. I'd love to see what Hubble's view of it would be. There are several galaxy clusters in the image. The one due east of NGC 3675 is WHL J112649.0+433441. The BCG is listed at 4.05 billion light-years but the cluster with the same location has a photographically determined redshift of 4.25 billion light-years. I consider the former more likely the more reasonable estimate. To the west and a bit north is the 22 member group WHL J112459.4+433810. Right near the northwest end of NGC 3675 is the small 7 member group WHL J112557.7+433919. Virtually my entire field is covered by ZwCl 1122.8+4351. It is listed as being 19 minutes across and containing 99 members. It's morphology is listed as open which means it lacks any pronounced concentration of galaxies. Yet another cluster is centered just off the east edge of my image. Several of its members are in the frame so I drew a line to indicate where the center is just a few pixels beyond the edge of the image. The cluster is GMBCG J171.91396+43.71478. The BCG is listed at 2.5 billion light-years with the cluster's photographic distance at 2.6. Again, the photographic determination is usually less accurate so I went with the 2.5 figure in the image.

The vast majority of galaxies in the field had no redshift values at NED. All that did are listed in the annotated image.

I see by Astronomy Magazine the term "flocculent galaxy" was coined by Debra Meloy Elmegreen the current president of the American Astronomical Society. I didn't realize it was such a new term.

I've also included the Sloan Survey image of this galaxy. It was the only image I found on the net that indicated there was more to the galaxy than all the other images I found were showing.

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

Related Designations for NGC3675