NGC3683

NGC 3683 is a rather strange galaxy in the bowl of the Big Dipper. It's tilted dust lane is what first attracted me to this one. Later I realized it was in the Herschel 400 II observing program, another reason to be on the to-do list. I figured the odd dust lane is due to a merger with another galaxy or at least a close interaction with one. I found nothing in the literature even discussing this odd feature. It is noted in passing in over 100 papers but about the only ones giving it much time are those covering the supernova in 2004 that blew in the galaxy. But nothing on the odd dust lane that looks like it could be a polar ring or some other interaction result. Besides the tilted ring that seems to go up and over the northwest end of the galaxy there's dust lane at the southeast that also isn't aligned with the galaxy. This one runs more east-west than the galaxy does and quickly is lost when it goes off the galaxy's illuminated portion. Two interactions in its past. I found nothing on either. If anyone wants to dig through the more than 100 papers that mention the galaxy and finds something on this please let me know. I'm so short on time right now I can't spend as much time researching as I'd like.

To the upper right is NGC 3674 a mostly featureless S0 galaxy. I thought I had it totally in the frame but see it extended further than NED indicated so I missed its northeastern ansae. Both galaxies were discovered by William Herschel but only 3683 is in either of the Astronomical League's observing programs. NGC 3683 was discovered first on March 18, 1790. NGC 3674 was discovered 3 years later on April 8, 1793.

There is a difference between redshift measurements and Tully-Fisher distance measurements. Redshift says 87 million light-years while Tully-Fisher says about 99 million light-years. By Redshift, I measure its size at about 55,600 light-years. By Tully-Fisher it is somewhat larger, about 63,300 light-years in size. Either way, it is a rather typically sized spiral galaxy. NGC 3674, whose redshift distance matches the Tully-Fisher distance to 3683 comes in at 45,600 light-years in size. I had to assume the northeast half of the galaxy is the same size as the southwest due to my framing error.

Below NGC 3683 is a quasar labeled FSRQ. That stands for Flat-Spectrum Radio Quasar. These may be similar or even identical to BL-Lac objects. They aren't all that common, at least at NED.

A distant galaxy with a single drawn out arm lies to the west-southwest of NGC 3683. It is ASK 296263.0. Opposite the arm is a galaxy. Unfortunately, I found nothing on it. Could it be what created that odd arm or is it just a coincidence? Below and to the right of it is a strange blue galaxy, LEDA 2548235. It is made of two parts. The position at NED matches the gap between the two parts. Also, NED has two very different redshift distances for it. One puts it 150 million light-years away and one referred to in an essential note puts it at 700 million light-years. I used to think the main redshift they give is more likely correct but recently I found one that appears to be wrong and the essential note distance is right. In this case, flip a coin. I tend to favor the closer distance. I wish there was distance data for the blue galaxy to its west. It has much the same color and likely is related. No redshift is published for it that I found. But again, due to time issues, I didn't look beyond NED. If someone finds something on it please let me know.

The blue star obliterating the lower left corner of the image is SAO 28035 a Magnitude 6.3 A4 star. I had one heck of a time convincing it to let me see much of the image. When I framed the field excluding it, it sent in a horrid ghost image and blue ring. I finally found this position that got rid of those but I see that cost a bit of NGC 3674. Hipparcos puts it at a distance of 221 light-years. I guess I should be glad it isn't closer.

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

Related Designations for NGC3683

NGC3686

NGC 3686 is a rather low contrast, face on spiral galaxy about 50 to 70 million light-years away in the hindquarters of Leo the Lion. The difference in distance depends on whether you go with the non-redshift or redshift distance determination. Usually, with nearby galaxies like this one I side with the non-redshift distance but I'm making an exception here. Three other spiral galaxies with similar redshift values are just out of the bottom of my image. Their non-redshift distances vary by nearly a factor of two but redshift values are quite similar. If related then they must be about the same distance. Hence I'm going with the redshift distance with is close the middle of all 4 galaxies non-redshift distances. I'd need to mosaic another frame to catch these which is on the to-do list but when it will happen I don't know. They are NGC 3681, NGC 3684 and 3691 all found by William Herschel with NGC 3681 being in the second Herschel 400 program.

This galaxy could have made Arp's peculiar galaxy atlas under its 3 armed spiral category. To my eye it is a better example than most of the 3 he listed in that cagegory.

NGC 3686 was discovered by William Herschel on March 14, 1784. It is in the original Herschel 400 program. My notes from that on the humidity limited night of April 16, 1985 using my 10" f/5 at 50x reads: "Large, oval galaxy that resembles a tilted featureless spiral with no nucleus seen. Also in the field are NGC 3684,3681 and 3691." Dreyer's description reads "pretty bright, large, very little extended, very gradually brighter middle, mottled but not resolved." Sounds like the humidity was hurting me more than I realized.

The annotated image shows a lot of galaxies at a distance of about 1.6 to 1.7 billion light-years scattered about the image. They seem more concentrated to the lower right. This is the center location of the Abell 1264 galaxy cluster which is large enough to cover my entire image even when centered to the lower right. Another cluster with only 13 members is north of NGC 3686 and a bit closer at 1.52 billion light-years. This however is a photographically determined distance that can be somewhat in error. Considering many of the galaxies with spectroscopically determined redshift around this point are at 1.64 billion light-years I have to wonder if this isn't just part of the Abell cluster Though there is one galaxy in the area with the 1.52 billion light-year distance.

Three asteroids are shown in the annotated image though one is so faint it nearly vanished due to the losses of JPG compression. A fourth is lost in NGC 3686 itself and listed at the same magnitude as the nearly vanished one. I can't be sure I'm seeing it so didn't include it. Transparency this night wasn't all that great making even the 17.6 magnitude asteroid on the far left fainter than it should be. I lost at least a half to .75 magnitudes over an average night.

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

Related Designations for NGC3686

NGC3724

When I imaged the USGC S171 galaxy group last April I had no idea what a can of worms I was opening. I looked up the group on a POSS server nothing odd was seen. When I brought it up in The Sky I decided to center on NGC 3724 so entered those coordinates. The scope dutifully imaged exactly what I expected. I processed the image and seeing it was in a little studied area had only a few galaxies to annotate. When I started in on that all hell broke loose. When I checked the NGC project for details on NGC 3724 it showed me an entirely different galaxy yet referred to NGC 3732 at the very bottom of my image. But nothing else made any sense at all. At least they gave an IC number for it as well (IC 2910). That took me to a galaxy almost 40 minutes beyond this field to the west. Now I was totally confused. Looking up NGC 3724 at NED showed the field and galaxy I'd taken but noted that NGC 3724's identity was uncertain. Oddly NED had no such "essential note" for NGC 3722 even though the NGC project again pointed to an entirely different galaxy two thirds of a degree west well out of my field of view. Then checking NGC 3730 I found it too was of uncertain identity yet both sources pointed to the same galaxy in this case. By this time I was breaking out the Jack Daniels and it was only mid-afternoon. For a lot more on this confusion see the entry for NGC 3724 at the NGC Project and their reasoning as to why they picked these other galaxies. Since I use NED as my standard source unless I have a strong reason otherwise I'll go with their identifications on the annotated image. But then I checked SIMBAD and found yet a different ID for these. What NED has for 3724 SIMBAD says is 3722 and vise versa. NGC 3730 at NED and NGC Project is NGC 3721 at SIMBAD. NED says 3721 is a galaxy just out of the top of my field while the NGC project puts it over near their version of NGC 3722 and 3724. Even a half dozen shots of Jack Daniels didn't help my aching brain. In any case, there's no uncertainty that this is the field for the center of USCG S171 whose center is marked on the annotated image.

Here's a table of the NGC galaxies at NED (N) then NGC Project (NP) then SIMBAD (S).

IC 2910(N) NGC 3724(NP), IC 2910(S)*
LEDA 170153(N), NGC 3722(NP), LEDA 170153(S)*
NGC 3721(N), NGC 3721(NP), NPM1G -09.0435(S)*
NGC 3722(N), na(NP), NGC 3724(S)
NGC 3724(N), na(NP), NGC 3722(S)
NGC 3730(N), NGC 3730(NP), NGC 3721(S)
NGC 3732(N)(NP)(S)
* not in my frame

NGC project covers only objects it considers NGC galaxies or IC galaxies. I use na to indicate the object isn't considered either by the project thus not covered.
In all cases, The Sky agrees with NED. I was too dizzy to check other sources.

This confusing field can be found in north-central Crater and is about 300 million light-years distant. IC 2910, the other NGC 3724 lies at about the same distance so is likely also part of the group though NED lists no size for it. Also the other NGC 3722 (LEDA 170153 according to NED, SIMBAD and The Sky) is also about this distance. This field is on my to-do list. Though at the time only because this other NGC 3724 is a nice peculiar galaxy. I had no idea of this can of worms when I put it on the list. The other NGC 3722 is nearby so will be in the field though I'd not thought about it when putting this area on the to-do list.

NGC 3722 and NGC 3724 in my image were discovered by Andrew Common in 1880 according to Corwin and Seligman yet when I look up NGC discoveries by Common neither is listed.

The other NGC 3722 and NGC 3724, as well as NGC 3730, were discovered by Francis Preserved Leavenworth in 1886. His list of NGC discoveries does include 3722 and 3724.

This leaves only one other NGC galaxy and this one has no issues except I didn't get it all in the frame. That is NGC 3732 rather ill-defined spiral or S0 galaxy that is much closer at about 88 million light-years. It was discovered by William Herschel who didn't mess up coordinates when he logged it on March 4, 1786. It is in the Herschel II 400 list. Since that wasn't the target my system chose it didn't bother to make sure it was in the frame even though it too was on the to-do list. I suppose I need to rewrite my script to check for such things in the future.

NGC 3722 is 82,000 light-years across
NGC 3724 is 120,000 light-years across
MCG-01-30-008 is 64,000 light-years across if the redshift distance is right.
2MFGC 09063 is 85,000 light-years across
NGC 3730 is 140,000 light-years across
NGC 3732 is only 30,000 light-years across
GSC 5509 00368 is lost behind a star so I can only estimate its size at 50,000 light-years.

Six asteroids are visible in the luminance FITs stack. A couple are very faint and might not make it in the highly compressed annotated image. Transparency was poor this night so even the brightest which would normally be nearly saturated is rather faint though its color traces can be seen.

Due to the conditions and how low this one is in my sky the color data is highly suspect. All attempts at normal color balance techniques (G2V, eXcalibrator) failed miserably turning in a highly red image. So I applied more a seat of the pants color balance. The result is highly suspect but the best I can come up with under the conditions. I couldn't find any color images of this area except pseudo color from red and blue POSS plates so I had to pretty much wing it. Basically, I used the brightest asteroid and equalized the three color traces. Probably wrong as I don't know the color of the asteroid. Many are red. In which case this one is red starved.

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

Related Designations for NGC3724

NGC3726

NGC 3726 is about 35 million light-years away in Ursa Major. It is part of a group of galaxies sometimes called the Ursa Major Cloud. M108 and M109 I've covered in the past are the brightest members of the group. It too appears to have tangled with something in the past as told by the strongly kinked arm at the "bottom" of the galaxy making it look very unsymmetrical. That arm shows strong new star formation with the many knots of blue stars. Who it tangled with in the past I haven't been able to find out.

It was discovered February 5, 1788 by William Herschel. It is in the original H400 observing program as it is a very good visual object. My entry from May 4, 1984 with a 12.5" f/6 scope from the New Mexico Bad Lands at 150x on an excellent night reads "Large, oval, a featureless puff, Getting evenly brighter toward the Nucleus. Seems about 12th magnitude due to its rather large disk spreading its light out so much rather than the 10.8 in the H400 preliminary pages or 11.3 in Burnham's." Obviously, I wasn't seeing the arms that are obvious in my image.

This is one of my very first color images processed with insufficient software and ignorance of how to us what it did allow me to do. Somehow it came out surprisingly well but likely would show more detail if I went back and reprocessed it. Just haven't had the time.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=3x10' all binned 2x2, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC3726

NGC3780

NGC 3780 is a many armed spiral often considered by some as similar to M 101. Like M 101 it is in Ursa Major but is in the bowl of the dipper rather than above its handle. It is about 110 million light-years distant by redshift and 150 million by the median of 5 Tully Fisher measurements. Assuming the 110 million light-year distance it is much smaller at about 90,000 light-years across (120,000 if the larger distance is correct). While it is said to have HII regions all are under 1" of arc in size so I didn't pick them up. Like M 101 it is highly unsymmetrical in its shape and spiral structure. NED listed a couple of its knots as separate galaxies, I didn't annotate them even though NED didn't consider them parts of the galaxy. Their redshift was the same indicating they are just star clouds in the galaxy. The galaxy was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel but isn't in either of the two Herschel 400 lists which I find is an odd omission.

To the southeast is NGC 3794 which is also NGC 3804. In fact 3804 is the more correct number. It was discovered twice by William Herschel in 1789 but his position for NGC 3794 was off by 30" of time leading him to not catch his mistake though his descriptions of the two match. This one, being fainter than 3780 also failed to make either Herschel 400 list. In this case NED also points to a bright blob in the galaxy as being a different galaxy. But the redshift puts it 5 times further away so it likely is a separate galaxy. I've noted it in the annotated image.

NGC 3780 was discovered by William Herschel on April 16, 1789. NGC 3794 was discovered by him on April 14, 1789 but RA wrong. He later found it on March 18m, 1790 and got the postion right. Neither he nor Dreyer caught this error so it has a double listing in the NGC.

The third major galaxy in the image is UGC 06596, a rather large irregular galaxy at about the same redshift as NGC 3780 so the two are likely related. It is about 45,000 light-years across making it 3 times larger than the large Magellanic Cloud. Their projected separation is about 475,000 light-years putting it 3 time further away than the large cloud is from our galaxy. I consider it unlikely it is a satellite of NGC 3780 given these figures. It too has a star cloud in it that NED lists as a separate galaxy but this one has the same redshift as UGC 06596. Thus it appears to be just a bright star cloud in the galaxy rather than a separate galaxy. I suppose it is possible that it is something being digested but I rather doubt that. I find nothing on it in the literature to help.

Two galaxy clusters are seen above NGC 3780. I'd have considered this to be one rather than two but apparently two different redshifts are involved. I point the the Bright Cluster Galaxy likely anchoring each cluster. The redshifts of both clusters is photographic so can be a bit iffy. The BCG of the closer cluster however has a spectroscopic redshift putting it, and thus the cluster closer than the photographic redshift would indicate and making more likely these really are two different clusters. I wish there was redshift data for the blue galaxy below the BCG of the more distant cluster. Apparently it is not related to either cluster.

Objects with designations other than those that are just its coordinates are listed by catalog name. Otherwise just by the notation of G for galaxy, GC for galaxy cluster, GG for galaxy group and Q for quasar.

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

Related Designations for NGC3780

NGC3801

NGC 3801 is in the center of a small group of NGC galaxies, some north and south out of my limited field of view. The cluster is located in the tail of Leo about 170 million light-years distant. It certainly is an interesting galaxy. Highly disturbed by some encounters in the past with plumes going every which way and two dust lanes at right angles to each other. Rather red so apparently the interaction was some time in the past. It shut down star formation and now only smaller old red stars are left it would seem. Or is the red color due to it shrouded in a dust cloud caused by the interaction that masks its blue stars? Doesn't look like dust reddening to me. NED classes it as S0/a though I see little indication of any spiral structure. Looks more S0 or E to me but with dust. Could it be two spirals merging into an elliptical? Maybe but I found nothing supporting this. NGC Project classes it simply as S0? It certainly is a very active galaxy for its classification. Something massive is going on it appears. Note the asteroid trail in the southern part of the galaxy. This one is very interesting to many CCD users. I'll have more on it in a bit. Edit: Yesterday some new information was released on NGC 3801 -- see below.

Above it is NGC 3802. An edge on spiral that NED also classes S0/a. Looks like a typical spiral to me so here I can't fathom where the S0 came from. Such galaxies rarely have a nice dust lane in the disk's plane like it has. NGC project says simply S... for a classification.

NGC 3806 is a nice face on barred spiral that is very blue and of a rather faint surface brightness. So while its light comes mostly from new young stars there aren't many of them or it would be quite a bit brighter. NED classes it as SABb. The NGC project says Sb/SBb. Apparently, they aren't sure of the bar? Maybe it is an elongated nucleus rather than a bar?

NGC 3803 is a rather tiny galaxy to make the NGC list. It has a high surface brightness which attracted visual observers I suppose. It is so small NED didn't try to classify it. The NGC project called it simply E. Seems rather blue in color for that classification

NGC 3790 is the only one NED and the NGC Project agree on. NED says S0/a and the NGC Project SO-a.

Two other galaxies may be members. Though KUG 1137+179 at 190 million light-years has a somewhat different redshift it doesn't rule it out as a possible member. NED says it is simply a spiral. CGCG 097-046 is classed at NED as simply S0 which appears reasonable to me.

As is often the case I came up with a couple possible galaxies not listed at NED. Both are large faint puffs. I suppose they could be IFN or something akin to that. I doubt that, however. I see both in the Sloan image but with no resolution. They are east and southeast of NGC 3801. I've marked them with a question mark on the annotated image.

Several galaxy clusters are in the image.
NSCS J114128+174623 has 46 members
NSCS J114131+174924 has 41 members
GMBCG J175.40459+17.65904 has 14 members
GMBCG J175.38869+17.87717 has 10 members
GMBCG J174.85594+17.58540 has a lucky 13 members.

That brings us to the asteroid. I didn't know of its existence until I looked up what asteroid had wandered into the image. It is (35197) Longmire at magnitude 18.2. That ring any bells to you CCD users? It did for me. I had to look up the naming citation to see if it was the Longmire I was thinking of. I figured my guess would be wrong but was happy to see I was right. Here's the citation.

"Matthew J. Longmire (b. 1958) is an electrical engineer who co-founded a small CCD brand that in 1991 developed star tracking equipment, sparking the CCD revolution in the world of amateur astronomy."

He's one of the founders of SBIG that made my CCDs and the ST-4 I used to guide my film images for many years. In fact, it is the ST-4 the "star tracking equipment) the citation refers to. Apparently, they have a thing about no company names in naming citations. Serendipity strikes again.

Edit: Now for the new information. Yesterday I received an email from JPL/NASA and an astronomy club member about a press release from JPL/NASA about a "cosmic leaf blower" galaxy. Yep, they are talking about NGC 3801. Turns out my surmises are pretty much correct. The above was written some time ago as I worked on the annotated image. I left it alone other than the last sentence. Sometimes I get it pretty close to right. Note the sidebar transposes the galaxy to NGC 3810.

I wasn't going to release this one so soon and out of order as I didn't like the galaxy's color. Just too red for a spiral. I was going to look again at the data to see if I screwed something up but the color matches the press releases description -- their image is false color so of no help. Though I don't see the blue stars Galex sees in the UV part of the spectrum. Here's the news release from April 3, 2012.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-094

I normally preprocess an image to see if it is worth further work. That happens a couple months before I finally process the image. In this case, I'm working way out of order. I did the preprocess of this late April 2011 image, saw it would work so did the research. I finished my write up a couple days ago planning on doing the full process of the image in a couple months as I'm still image processing from February 2011. But when I got the press release yesterday afternoon I dropped my February processing and worked on this one finding the asteroid which was another surprise. After working frantically since then I finally have it ready to go. I'll be returning to February images after this. I research well ahead of processing as I use the time to contact various astronomers I know to find out if they have any information on the object. They are pretty busy and often need a couple month's time to get back to me. I skipped that step thanks to the press release. If I hear back with additional information I'll cover it in a later post.

14" LX 200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC3801

NGC3810

NGC 3810 is a beautiful near face on spiral that for some reason virtually no one seems to image. It is located in eastern Leo and may be part of the Virgo Galaxy cluster. I find various distance estimates. Redshift says 62 million light-years while the median value at NED of non-redshift measurements says 59 million. That is a good agreement. Then the HST web page on their image of the galaxy says 50 million light-years. The HST image and text can be found at: http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1006a/ . Note that this image was taken with blue-green and infrared filters so misses H alpha light and is not a natural color image though not too distorted other than missing H alpha totally. It is oriented with north to the left. My image has north at the top.

It was discovered by William Herschel on March 15, 1784 and was put into the first Herschel 400 list published by the Astronomical League, one reason it went on my to-do list. Notes at NED indicate its HII regions are 1" of arc or smaller so not seen by the authors. Thus I was taken aback when I processed this image and many HII regions popped out without my doing anything. Especially since the Sloan image I saw showed these areas as blue star clusters. I didn't use an H alpha filter nor push H alpha with Lab color techniques. The red was just there. In fact, I toned it down some as it looked too strong to me. The only other image I could find was one by Adam Block when he was at Kitt Peak but even that image showed them only weakly. I'm at a loss to explain my results. Especially since conditions were fast going downhill and I saved red to last since it is least hurt when this happens. Maybe somehow the thick haze helped? You can see it even in the luminance images in the lone asteroid trail which dims in the middle due to the thick haze getting even thicker. Processing this one was "interesting" due to the bright haze the star on the left side of the image threw across the entire field. I almost canned this one and put it up for a reshoot next year upon seeing how poor the data was but gave it a shot which turned out far better than I expected.

The annotated image shows many galaxies about 1.05 billion light-years distant. They must be part of some cluster but I couldn't find what it might be. Could be it isn't cataloged. I'm somewhat puzzled by a galaxy cluster and galaxy in the upper right corner. Both are listed at NED at the same coordinates though those of the cluster have a larger error circle the center of the circle matches the position of a galaxy. That's quite common as they use the bright cluster galaxy for the position when there is one. But this time the galaxy isn't listed as being the BCG and has a rather different redshift. That happens when the cluster's redshift is photographic and the galaxies spectroscopic. But in this case both are spectroscopic so I'd expect close if not exact agreement. That wasn't the case. I don't know if the galaxy is unrelated and just happens to lie in the same line of sight as the cluster or if they are related and one of the redshift measurements is inaccurate (or both are).

There are three quasars in the image, two very blue. The third is the most distant but is listed as a quasar candidate. What else it could be at that redshift I don't know but it is listed a broad absorption line object and quasar candidate so I marked it with QC in the annotated image. It too is blue just not as strongly blue as the other two.

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

Related Designations for NGC3810

NGC3811

NGC 3811 is a highly disturbed spiral galaxy in the hind legs of Ursa Major about 150 to 160 million light-years distant. While the main part of the galaxy is a bit under 50,000 light-years in diameter its plumes double its size to a bit over 100,000 light-years. It is classed as an SB(r)cd: Starburst galaxy by NED. The NGC project says it is SBc. The problem is how did it get so disturbed. NED shows a galaxy embedded in the spiral arm on the east just below a rather bright knot. It didn't show clearly in my annotated image so I've attached the SDSS image annotated to point out the possible galaxy. Is it really a galaxy or just part of the galaxy? It is quite blue so to me appears to be just another star knot in the arm like the one above it or bigger and brighter ones on the opposite side of the galaxy. In any case, it is quite likely the appearance of 3811 is due to something it has or is digesting. This would also account for its starburst status in the core.

It was discovered by William Herschel on February 9, 1788. It isn't listed in either of the two Herschel 400 observing programs.

The rest of its field contains nothing but quite distant galaxies and a couple quasars. Only a handful of these had redshift data at NED. All that did are shown in the annotated image. The Minor Planet Center listed no asteroids in the field. Not surprising at this rather high declination that puts it well above the main asteroid belt.

Conditions went south as I was taking this and I had to throw out a lot of frames. I thought most blue frames were badly damaged to unusability but it turned out only one was. I had taken 8 luminance frames but only three were good and one sort of usable. I included it as it did help a bit with the plumes but only slightly.

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

Related Designations for NGC3811

NGC3817

This may be one of the busiest fields I've imaged. It certainly resulted in a complex annotated image that took me several times longer than usual. Fortunately, I'd worked ahead a bit knowing this was coming. The field contains Hickson 58, a group of 5 or maybe 8 galaxies many, or all, of which made the NGC catalog as well as two rather nearby Abell galaxy clusters, #1354 at the bottom and #1356 at the top. It also contains many galaxies not in any of these three groups, some of which are quite interesting. Add in that some of the NGC galaxies have two different NGC numbers and things get even more complex.

I'll start with Hickson 58 as that was my target. It is listed as having 8 members at NED and 5 everywhere else and is about 300 million light-years distant in the constellations of Virgo and Leo -- the dividing line is above NGC 3822/3848 and below NGC 3819. The problem is NED lists only 5 members, all NGC galaxies so I can't tell what the other three are or if that is even right. No other source I found says 8. The major ones are NGC 3822/3848, and NGC NGC 3825/3852. Both found By William Herschel on March 15, 1784. So why two designations for each? Here's the explanation at the NGC project: (NGC project site is being rebuilt (very slowly but I got this before it died)

"NGC 3848 is probably NGC 3822, and NGC 3852 is probably NGC 3825. The
two questionable identifications are a pair found by William Herschel on 15
March 1784, III 35 and III 36. He describes them as ``Two on parallel, 3 or 4
arcmin distant. Both eF, vS,'' and assigns a single position to the pair.

Dreyer, in the Notes to his 1912 edition of WH's papers, claims for N3848,
``Observed by Bigourdan, place correct.'' For N3852, he says, ``RA possibly 1
minute too great (see II 64 [NGC 4352]). Not found by Bigourdan.''

This is curious, as Bigourdan clearly states ``Not seen, at least in a sure
way'' for N3848, and ``Not seen'' for N3852. Perhaps there is a note in one
of Bigourdan's Comptes Rendus papers. In any case, Bigourdan has precise
measurements for NGC 3822 and NGC 3825, and identifies them correctly. They
are 2 minutes west (not 1 minute) of WH's positions for N3848 and N3852, and
they match WH's description well."



NGC 3822/3848 is member A of the HCG 58 group and classed as Sb though I've seen S0 (NGC project says S0?) for it that doesn't seem reasonable to me. It was discovered by William Herschel on March 15 1784 and got the NGC 3848 designation by Dreyer. A month later on April 15, 1784, he found it again. Neither he nor Dreyer caught the duplication so it got the NGC 3822 number

NGC 3825/3852 is member B of HCG 58. While redshift puts it as a member of the group its Tully Fisher distance estimate is wildly different at nearly 500 million light-years. So far off I didn't include it in the annotated version. Like NGC 3825/3852 these were discovered on April 15 and May 15 of 1854. Sounds like he had the same positional error one of these nights. I can't find which ones were more accurate.

NGC 3817 is HCG 58C and is considered a triple galaxy. ASK 272459 is on the left and SDSS J114151.70+101809.0 on the right. Buried in the glow of it is a quasar candidate shown on the annotated image. The galaxy has no redshift listed at NED so may or may not be a companion. The left galaxy has virtually the same redshift so likely is a satellite of the main galaxy. The main galaxy is classed as SB0/a at NED and SB0-a at the NGC project. It was discovered by John Herschel on January 18, 1828.

NGC 3819 is HCG 058D. NED lists it as E1 while the NGC Project says E. It was found by John Hershel on January 18, 1828

NGC 3820 is HCG 058E. Ned and the NGC project lists it as Sbc. Its discovery came later on April 29, 1865 by Heinrich d'Arrest.

The only other NGC galaxy is in the lower left corner. It is classed as Sc. It was discovered on April 15, 1784 by William Herschel. While not considered part of Hickson 58 it does lie at about the same distance so likely is part of the same group. It's too far from the others to meet Hickson's compact requirement.

The two Abell cluster's center positions are shown on the annotated image. Abell 1354 is listed as being morphology class III which means it lacks any type of a central large galaxy and is rather disorganized with little concentration. Though ASK 272855 isn't far from the center and larger than the rest there are others nearly as big scattered in the 14 minute field. Abell 1356 is class II-III. Class II clusters are more organized with some condensation toward galaxies not quite large enough to be considered Cd or a Bright Cluster Galaxy. Abell 1356 would be somewhere between II and III. To me, it is very similar to 1354 in that it has two rather large galaxies not far from its center, LEDA 139664 and ASK 272849 that aren't much larger or brighter than several others in the group. Several other galaxy groups are seen throughout the image.

One galaxy I wanted to know more about is MAPS-NGP O-494_053290. It is to the east-northeast of NGC 3825/3852. It lies close to ASK 273268 but are they at the same distance and thus related? I find no redshift or other distance estimates for the MAPS galaxy. It has such highly warped arms I wish we could get a closer look at it.

Conditions went to pot on this one several times while I was trying to get its data. Especially troublesome was the blue data that got hit by clouds and bad seeing each time. The bad seeing was so bad it created huge stars about 7" FWHM rather than the 3" for the red and green stars. I tried on 4 occasions all failed. I used the two best blue frames but between cloud dimming and the seeing I ended up with blue rings around even rather red stars that no amount of deconvolution could seem to cure. I suspect the galaxies, while rather red are shown more red than they really are due to the dearth of blue data.

Even the luminance was hard hit by a thick haze. I used the 6 best frames but my limiting magnitude is a good 1.5 magnitudes brighter than normal thanks to the haze. While that was better some nights I tried for the blue data the seeing was awful so I didn't even try luminance those nights. Instead of trying for good blue I might have been better off to take bad red and green. Sounds crazy but it often works better than waiting for a good night for the third color that never comes.

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

Related Designations for NGC3817

NGC3821

I like it when I can catch 2 objects on my to-do list in one image. They are in the hindquarters of Leo about 280 million light-years distant by both redshift and non-redshift measurements. Both are interesting. NGC 3816 appears to be the result of a merger or collision though I didn't find any papers suggesting this. The UGC does call it "Slightly asymmetric" and says "spiral, disturbed?" It's obviously highly disturbed with huge plumes. Including those plumes, it is over 300,000 light-years across. Even ignoring the plumes it is still some 175,000 light-years across. Note PGC 036349 to the east. It has a normally bright northern half but much of the southern half is exceedingly faint. Could it have interacted with NGC 3816? I came up empty trying to verify or deny this. NGC 3816 was discovered on May 9, 1864 by Heinrich d'Arrest. It seems bright enough Herschel should have seen it but that didn't happen.

The other object on my to-do list was NGC 3821, an obvious ring galaxy which NED notes as having a RET nucleus. I had to look that one up. It stands for retired. Now I'm retired but what's a retired nucleus? The term refers to galaxy cores that were starburst cores with starburst activity in the past and are now showing ionization as if still active but that is caused only by the ton of evolved low-mass stars created by this activity long ago. I may be retired but I don't have anything that could be called low-mass unfortunately. Thanks to the ring it is also a large spiral at 145,000 light-years in diameter. The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on April 26, 1785.

When I went to frame the image, the sky reported another NGC galaxy nearby that would be in the field if I moved it a bit west which I did. It is a rather typical S0-: galaxy, NGC 3805. It is not as unusual as the other two but is also quite large as some S0 galaxies are. I can trace it out to at least 200,000 light-years across. Including the really faint outer reaches, it is likely somewhat larger if I'd have given it more exposure time. It is slightly more distant by redshift than the first two being some 320 million light-years distant again this is both by redshift and non-redshift measurements. It was discovered by William Herschel on April 25, 1785 a day before seeing NGC 3821. Neither are in either of the Herschel 400 observing programs.

This field is on the northwestern edge of the Abell 1367 galaxy cluster which has a redshift distance of 315 million light-years according to NED. Thus these three and many others in the field are likely members of this large cluster about 3/4 of a degree away. My 2008 image of this cluster can be seen here: http://www.spacebanter.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=4630&stc=1

One rather interesting galaxy that's twice as distant as the Abell cluster is LEDA 1617816. It has unusually sharp edges, quite blue with two arms that look more like hands on a clock than spiral arms. They don't even come off at opposite angles as is usually the case. I was wondering how NED would classify it. I wasn't expecting R(K)3 as the classification. I think this is the rarely seen Yerkes classification scheme but usually, the middle letter is lower case, not upper case. What this means is the galaxy is rotationally symmetric (doesn't have an obvious spiral or elliptical structure). Has mostly K class stars in the core region and is somewhat tilted to our line of site (1 face on -- 7 edge on). There seems some disagreement if rotationally symmetric should be denoted with a "D" or with an "R". Sources vary on this but all would use lower case for the class of core stars seen. So maybe this isn't the correct interpretation. It's all I could come up with.

The night I took this was quite iffy. I started with blue expecting things to not be good enough for luminance. The blue was indeed weak but suddenly the sky cleared so I changed over to luminance but that soon went downhill with the last couple luminance frames being very weak. It then seemed to clear so I tried for green which went well. I thought red had too but when I went to process the data I find the second red image was lost entirely to clouds. I set to redo blue that was so week but the clouds that killed red only slightly parted so the blue redo was also very weak. Thus I ended up with 2 good luminance frames, two weak ones, 4 weak blue, two great green (least useful of the bunch) and only one red but that one was pretty good and had no satellites. Since I didn't notice this until I was processing it and it was too late to redo it I am going with what I was able to get. The result is a rather noisy image that still manages to show much of what I was after.

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

Related Designations for NGC3821