NGC4490

Arp 269 is made up of NGC 4485 and NGC 4490. The big one is NGC 4490 which is sometimes known as the Cocoon Galaxy. They are located in Canes Venatici which is high overhead in the evening this time of year. These two have had a near collision that has ripped stars out of both and started massive star formation in them as shown by the many bright HII regions (pink). NGC 4490 gets the Cocoon name for being embedded in a faint cocoon of stars much as a pupa is in a cocoon. I've posted two versions of this guy. The first as it is more normally seen and then a very deep processing to better show the cocoon of stars that surrounds it. The distance to these two is rather vague. I see published papers giving distances ranging from 25 to 60 million light years. Those citing about 35 million seems better researched so that's what I'll go with. There's very little on the net about these guys other than published papers so I don't have any links that are of much use here. I would have thought it a target for Hubble but it isn't in their database that I can find. But Chandra has looked at it in X-ray light.
http://chandra.harvard.edu/graphics/press/03_releases/052703_images/ngc4485.jpg while an HST image of NGC 4485 can be seen at: http://cseligman.com/text/atlas/ngc4485hst.jpg

Arp put it in his classification for Group Character: Connected Arms. I don't see how this pair varies from many other interacting pairs he put under other categories in his atlas. NGC 4485 to the north is classified as IB(s)m pec while NGC 4490 is classified at NED as SB(s)d pec. The pair was discovered by William Herschel on January 14, 1788. Both are in the original Herschel 400 observing program as two individual listings. My notes from April 28, 1984 with a 12.5" f/6 telescope at up to 150x on an excellent night in the New Mexican desert read: "Small and dim with no detail. In the same field with much larger and brighter NGC 4490. A Mutt and Jeff pair. Appears slightly elongated. Hard to judge this one as my eye keeps jumping to NGC 4490." The entry for NGC 4490 reads: Bright with stellar nucleus. Some detail seen in arms. Appears to be a highly tilted spiral. A bit more tilted than M31. A fine object especially when paired with NGC 4485. Seems about 9.5 magnitude, brighter than Burnham says." It's obvious I'd not seen anything on this pair before looking at it as I thought I was looking at a classic spiral rather than a messed up one with no defined arms.

Our galaxy is very over due for a naked eye super nova event. Not one has blown in our galaxy, that we could see that is, since the invention of the telescope much to astronomer's dismay. We find them all the time in very distant galaxies where they are faint and difficult to study. So when one blows in a near by galaxy it causes lots of observatories to drop what they were doing and get their instruments trained on the exploding star. One did so in NGC 4490 shining "brightly". It blew in 2008 and is known as 2008ax being discovered on March 3 by Link Observatories automated supernova search telescope and by Japanese amateur Koichi Itagaki who has discovered over 100 supernova. This one was bright enough to be seen in amateur telescopes of 8" or larger size when viewed from a very dark location. It is shining at magnitude 13.2 as best as I can measure it against the background of the galaxy in my image.

The distance to NGC 4490 is a bit uncertain. I've seen estimates from 35 to 50 million light years. Maybe they'll have to pin it down a bit closer to get meaningful results from the study of this supernova. This is a very blue galaxy in which star birth has been going on at an extremely high rate due to interaction with a companion galaxy NGC 4485 also in the image. Many of these new stars are super-massive blue giants that are very short lived. Lasting only a few million years before they blow up. So it isn't at all surprising to find a supernova in this galaxy. My super nova image was taken in strong moonlight and had very limited color data due to clouds and lousy seeing. But it does show the supernova when it was about 13.5 magnitude. It apparently brightened a bit after my image was taken. Of course all this really happened at least 35 million years ago so this is old news to residents of the galaxy, assuming they could survive living in such an active galaxy with the intense radiation caused by its star birth condition. Be very glad we don't live in such a galaxy. The pink regions easily seen in my image are due to HII emission from areas where star birth is still going on. My lousy seeing and limited color data makes them hard to see in the super nova image.

Arp's image:
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp269.jpeg

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

Related Designations for NGC4490

NGC4496

Before reading the below look at the image full image -- not the annotated one. Are the two galaxies interacting? Are they at the same distance or is one in front of the other? If the latter which is in front? OK now read on and see if you are correct.

NGC 4496 is a pair of non-interacting galaxies in Virgo. Though some older papers say they are interacting redshift argues strongly against it. By redshift NGC 4496A (the northern and larger one) is about 95 million light-years away while NGC 4496B is 220 million light-years distant, over twice as far. Oddly it appears that NGC 4496B is in front of its larger "companion" but apparently we are seeing it through the stars of the larger galaxy. To add to the confusion there are two blue objects in NGC 4496A that show a redshift the same as NGC 4496B and are also listed as galaxies. Though they look more like star clusters in NGC 4496A the data says otherwise. I've marked them with G? in the annotated image. More confusing is that these objects don't appear reddened though NGC 4496 appears it could be reddened. I have no idea if the blue blob just south of NGC 4496B is a member of 4496B or A. If B it too should be somewhat reddened but isn't.

There's one more monkey wrench in this. All non-redshift determinations of the distance to NGC 4496A put it much closer. They average about 51 million light-years distant. If they are more correct it is a member of the Virgo Cluster though most papers go with the redshift and say it is not a member of the galaxy cluster.

One paper that considered them interacting calls VCC 1364 and possibly VCC 1359 debris from the interaction rather than separate galaxies. NED has no redshift for either but I included them in the annotated image. I vote against interaction and that these two are separate low surface brightness galaxies.

NED classes 4496A as SB(rs)m and 4496B as IB(s)m:. The NGC project only lists 4496A and says it is SBc. A confusing difference of opinion it would seem.

Were your right? Arp has long maintained cosmological redshift isn't necessarily a good distance indicator and high redshift objects, such as quasars can be far closer than redshift indicates. So far he has little proof on his side. While not involving quasar redshifts this pair certainly would be of interest to him I'd think. Odd he didn't put it on his list.

Besides the normal complement of galaxies, quasars, quasar candidates (UvES) and a galaxy cluster there are 5 asteroids in the image. One very bright and the others faint. All left unusually short trails as they are slowing down preparing for resumption of prograde motion.

Also, there's an interesting discussion at the NGC Project over the identity of this galaxy. Seems Herschel was rather quick in his entries for it and for another, NGC 4505. They conclude they are one and the same galaxy even though Herschel described 4496 as being a resolvable cluster! Also, the RC3 say VCC 1364 is NGC 4496 though I doubt it could have been seen in Herschel's day. Another paper on this problem but not bringing NGC 4505 in the discussion can be found at:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00627084?LI=true Oops. Could be found there when I typed this a few days ago. Now the site is "New and Improved" which means the article is now behind a paywall. Not worth paying for I assure you.

Edit: Seligman adds this, "...although their recessional velocities imply that they are at very different distances, redshift-independent distance estimates place them at the same distance, in which case they are an interacting pair and both members of the Virgo Cluster. In other words, this pair needs to be restudied, to clear up the considerable confusion about its true nature."

NGC 4496 were discovered by Albert Marth on March 28, 1864.

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

Related Designations for NGC4496

NGC4517

NGC 4517 (aka NGC 4437) is a member of the Virgo Cluster and is seen nearly edge-on. It made the NGC list twice due to a plotting error by John Herschel. That is the NGC 4437 listing. Years earlier his dad William Herschel recorded it giving the correct position. That is the NGC 4517 listing I'm using here. It's the one seen nearly edge on at the bottom of my image. The one at the top is NGC 4517A, a small faint barred spiral also in the cluster. Both are about 65 million light-years away. I had better than normal seeing (less distortion from our atmosphere). NGC 4517A at the top is a very faint galaxy. Due to digital processing that compresses 65,000 brightness levels down to the 256 levels a computer monitor can display the brightness of this galaxy appears far brighter in comparison to NGC 4517 than it really is. This field seen with the eye in even a very large scope is dominated by NGC 4517. You have to have good observing skills to even see NGC 4517A as any more than a faint smudge at the limit of visibility.

The odd short double dash just above NGC 4517 is the asteroid Sazava at magnitude 16.2. Due to weather I took the first two luminosity images, a single frame of each color, red, green and blue then took two more luminosity images before cycling through the color filters again. Notice the second (right) dash is dimmer as clouds were obscuring the sky. By the time of the second blue frame the overcast had put an end to viewing so, I only have one blue frame and 2 of red and green though the seconds of both are poor due to the clouds. As are the second set of luminosity images.

Edit: This is a 2007 image and text so rather lacking. I did reprocess the TIFF data some in 2013. William Herschel discovered it on February 22, 1784. It isn't in either H400 program which surprised me. John Herschel found it on April 14, 1828. As he made a 5 minute error he didn't realize it was one his dad had found decades earlier. Thus, it got the NGC 4437 entry. Of course nothing was at that position and due to a typo later on in another catalog, some tried to say it was NGC 4417. But John's description of the galaxy and its relation to a star show it was NGC 4517 he was looking at.

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

Related Designations for NGC4517

NGC4522

NGC 4522 is a near edge on spiral in the Virgo Cluster. It resides in the constellation of Virgo as well (not all the cluster does) and is thought to be about 60 million light-years distant. Though its redshift would put it about twice that distance. This difference indicates it is really moving rapidly through the Virgo Cluster. So fast that its dust and gas is being stripped from it. Some of this is visible in my image. Note the upper right side of the galaxy appears missing. IR images show it is there but hidden by dust and gas being blown up and to the right. Some faint star clouds are visible rising above the disk area that are made up of new stars formed in this dust as it is compressed by the ram pressure of its high speed run through the cluster's intergalactic medium. You can read all about it and see the HST image of the galaxy at: http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0911b/ .

What they don't mention is that it appears to have a double core. Even the HST image which resolves its stars shows an apparent double core. I suppose that could be due to dust obscuring the central part of the core giving the illusion it is double. There certainly is a lot of gas and dust in that area. I found nothing on this, however.

NED classifies the galaxy as SB(s)cd: sp HII. The NGC Project says simply, Sc. In any case, it is a quite interesting galaxy. Including the full extent of the faint stars off each end of the galaxy, it is some 81,000 light-years in diameter. Using the portion that shows in the JPEG image it is about 62,000 light-years in diameter assuming the 60 million light-year distance.

It has several companions in my image, IC 3715 an irregular dwarf to its east and UGCA 284 to the west, an elliptical galaxy. Then there's VCC 1496 a Dwarf E5 galaxy of low surface brightness to the southwest and VCC 1579 a bright S0 galaxy in the lower left corner. Several others are just outside my field.

There's a very tight pair of red galaxies to the upper right of NGC 4522; [WLH2009] 0550. It has two cores apparently in the same galactic halo. One has a redshift that puts it 1.37 billion light-years distant while the other as a "predicted" distance of also 1.37 billion light-years. This would seem to indicate these are two interacting galaxies or they are far enough apart they aren't interacting but are just along the same sight line giving that illusion. I see no tidal plumes to indicate interaction.

Well to the west of NGC 4522 and a bit south is the galaxy SDSS J123253.04+090703.0. It has a bright, near starlike core with two faint extensions on either side that are somewhat warped and get fatter as their distance from the core increases. Are the tidal plumes? I could find virtually nothing on this galaxy, unfortunately, not even a redshift.

Below NGC 4522 and a bit west is a rather nice galaxy cluster made up of both blue and gold members. I found it in two catalogs, one listing 19 members and an estimated distance of 3.43 billion light-years (NSCS J123335+090311) and another listing 15 members and a photographic redshift putting it 2.87 billion light-years away (WHL J123334.9+090304). Which is the more accurate I don't know. Though I've found the WHL entries usually more reliable.

Then there's a galaxy group (GG) of 4 or 6 galaxies to the southeast of NGC 4522. 5 members have a redshift measurement of which three say 1.18 billion light-years, another 1.16 billion light-years and oddly the one marked as the Bright Cluster Galaxy at 1.56 billion light-years. Though its distance was a guess based on the Friend of a Friend method. I don't pretend to understand this concept which is quite confusing to me considering its distance estimate is very different from the others, including another FoF estimate. I've drawn a line to where the galaxy group I've listed puts its center though that position is +/- 15 seconds of arc. Oddly its distance is greater than 4 of the members with an estimate though well below that of the BCG.

It appears to me that there are more faint fuzzy galaxies in the image than there are field stars from our galaxy. Though seeing wasn't all that great so that might fuzz some of the stars into galaxy like fuzz balls.

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

Related Designations for NGC4522

NGC4527

While nearly all my images are oriented north up. This galaxy looked "upside down" to me so I'm breaking my rule and displaying this field with south at the top.

NGC 4527 is a somewhat flocculent spiral galaxy in Virgo. Redshift puts it at a distance of about 96 million light-years but this is likely distorted by high velocity on the outskirts of the Virgo Cluster. Many different non-redshift measurements put it at about 45 million light-years. APOD and others say 50 million light-years. The latter gives it a size of 93,000 light-years which seems reasonable. The larger distance gives a rather unacceptable to me, size of 178,000 light-years while the NED non-redshift distance gives the smallest size of 84,000 light-years. Flip a three-sided coin on this one.

The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on February 23, 1784. It is in the original Herschel 400 observing program. My notes from April 23, 1985, under moonlight with my 10" f/5 at 50x reads: "Large, oval galaxy of even brightness but otherwise featureless. In the same low power field with much more interesting NGC 4536." While I've taken 4536 and the two are separated by about half a degree my field is only about 11 minutes from center to top or bottom so there's no overlap between the two making it impossible to mosaic the two. My image of 4536 is at http://www.spacebanter.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5363&d=1414649090 .

It is classified by NED as Sab(s)bc; HII LINER. New research on LINER galaxies indicates many may be LIERs rather than LINERs. It was thought they were powered black holes nearing starvation so greatly reducing the ionization they could create throughout the galaxy. The N standing for Nuclear when it was thought the radiation came from there. Now it appears many are powered by a scattering of white dwarfs through the disk rather than an active nucleus. See http://www.sdss.org/releases/proof-that-some-galaxies-are-liers/ for more on this. (Edit: Many of the texts with images at this site mistakenly use the wrong idea about LINER galaxies being caused by an active black hole. Now it is shown this may be very wrong and white dwarfs are the cause. Keep that in mind when encountering LINER galaxies)

Also over these years, I've had galaxies in my image classified with (f) such as Sb(f). I couldn't find what this meant so asked a few pros I do photometric work for on AGN's. They didn't know for sure. One suggested it meant they had an overabundance of F stars and I used that in a couple of my annotations. Finally one got back to me with the right explanation. Or at least a right explanation. It can mean the galaxy is seen virtually edge on (not that it is flat enough to make any of the flat galaxy catalogs). One such galaxy appears in this image to the right of NGC 4527 and is in the 2 micron flat galaxy catalog. Now I have to figure out which of my text files has this written up incorrectly and verify that those are seen edge on. (Edit: if a reader finds which have this error please let me know so I can fix them.) Here's the link I was sent: http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0509294.pdf

This image contains an unusual number of objects listed as UvES. These, NED considers as quasar candidates due to their large redshift and color shift as recorded in the color filters of the Sloan survey. Since no actual spectroscopic redshift has been determined the identification as a quasar is subject to change. Only those NED listed as being quasar candidates are shown in my annotated image.

There were several asteroids in the image that I'd normally be able to show but only one does appear and then only barely. This is again due to my lousy sky conditions of late limiting my ability to go deep. You may notice a break in the trail. This is because my system shut down for a while to wait for better skies then started in again 20 minutes later creating this gap. I'm beginning to wonder if normal transparency will ever return. Didn't help that on about the only really transparent night last May an aurora gave me a sky brighter than I get within 45 degrees of a full moon! Then, forest fire smoke from nearby and distant fires made imaging impossible. One of those was only 15 miles away thanks to our super dry spring. Seems I can't win.

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

Related Designations for NGC4527

NGC4535

NGC 4535 is a Herschel 400 object and also a rather nice galaxy being a face on grand design barred spiral in Virgo and a member of the Virgo Cluster. William Herschel found it on the night of December 28, 1785. It is classed as SAB(s)c and has a LINER active core (Edit: Or so it was thought when I wrote this but it may be due to white dwarfs instead.) and HII emission. I'd hoped to pick the many HII regions up but seeing was bad as it was most of this spring. That limited me to seeing a very few of the largest regions with most lost to the seeing. While redshift puts it at over 100 million light-years away this is an illusion. Analysis by the Hubble space telescope as well as many Tully Fisher distance estimates place it at about half that distance, 52 million light-years. This would put it in the Virgo Cluster.

The northern arm of the galaxy is rather strange with that suddenly bright, very straight, east-west section. That could have qualified it under Arp's heavy arm classification. Except for that, it is a rather normal appearing but low surface brightness spiral.

The galaxy has been called "The Lost Galaxy". Some sources incorrectly identify "The Lost Galaxy" as the much brighter and easier to see NGC 4526 only a half degree south, out of my field of view. (Edit: And not yet taken as this is written.) It too is a Herschel 400 galaxy so on my to-do list for another year. Even The Sky I use to point my telescope sent me to NGC 4526 when I entered "Lost Galaxy". NGC 4535 was named "The Lost Galaxy back in the Mid 50's in a Sky and Telescope article. It got the name because it is very faint when viewed in a typical 1950's backyard telescope. They topped out at about 6" back then. I tried to find it and couldn't from town in my 6" f/12. Even my entry (with a thin 4 day crescent moon) for the Herschel 400 back on April 23, 1985 using a 10" f/5 at 100 power to cut down moonlight reads: "Large, very faint galaxy with much mottling. Virtually circular with a hint of an oval shape." I wasn't seeing the spiral arms, just hints of their brighter parts. This agrees well the Dreyer's description: "pretty faint, very large, mottled but not resolved". The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on December 28, 1785. He was working late that night it would appear. You can read about the "The Lost Galaxy" issue at www.cloudynights.com/topic/276454-what-is-the-lost-galaxy/ . Steve Gottlieb is a major contributor to the NGC Project and a contributing editor to Sky and Telescope magazine. It is the first reply to the post asking about the name.

At the assumed 52 million light-year distance NGC 4535 is about 113,000 light-years across. Nothing else in the image appears to be in the Virgo Cluster.

One candidate quasar is in the upper left. Sloan image shows a bright core with a hint of a blue disk about it indicating it is a galaxy with a very bright core. Apparently, it is still uncertain if it rises to quasar level. In my poor seeing, it shows a slightly larger FWHM than the stars around it but I see no hint of that disk seen in the Sloan image.

Conditions, as usual, were poor. There's one 18th magnitude asteroid in the lower right. One of this magnitude normally easily colors the black sky beyond the luminance trail, Not this night. Also, note how it fades away showing the first couple luminance frames had better transparency than the last two. In fact, it faded away in the last frame. I had to wait several hours to get the color data. I should have put that off for another night entirely. Though I'd have gotten little done this spring doing that.

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

Related Designations for NGC4535

NGC4536

NGC 4536 is an interesting barred spiral in Virgo just above the celestial equator. It is thought to be a bit under 50 million light-years distant though its redshift puts it at twice that distance. It is classified as SAB(rs)bc with HII emission and a starburst core. It was discovered by William Herschel on January 24, 1784 and is in the original Herschel 400 list which I'm slowly working on. My entry from April 23, 1985 with my 10" f/5 with a 4 day moon under fair conditions at 50x reads, " Large oval galaxy with huge curving outer arms. Fainter than NGC 4527 in the same field but far more interesting."

It has a very odd, very dark and red dust lane near the core like a miniature black eye galaxy. Several papers say it doesn't have a central bulge but does have a pseudo-bulge. Assuming the generally accepted distance of 48 million light-years it is about 110,000 light-years across. Just how do you explain this crazy dust lane? I found nothing on it.

To its north is NGC 4533. It is a near edge on SAd: spiral with a similar redshift to NGC 4536. Is it really only half that distance or is it really at its redshift distance and thus not at all related to NGC 4536. I found nothing to answer this question. If the redshift is right it is about 68,000 light-years in size. If it is the same distance as NGC 4536 it is half that size or 34,000 light-years. I'm not going to hazard a guess on this one. It was discovered by Ernst Wilhelm Leberecht Tempel using an 11" refractor in 1877. He is credited with finding 150 NGC galaxies and, of course, the comet Tempel 1 that Pete Schultz's impactor punched a crater into on July 4, 2005.

There are quite a few galaxies in the field that have redshifts that put them about 1 billion light-years distant. They are likely members of the Abell 1564 galaxy cluster. It's center is about 7 minutes below the bottom of my image and is listed as 30 minutes in diameter. Its distance is listed at 1.05 billion light-years. A very good match to the galaxies I'm speaking of. They all fall within the 15 minute radius of the cluster.

There are also several at 1.81 billion light-years including a tight group of 4 just off the southeast edge of NGC 4536 and a pair to the southwest with a lone galaxy above the pair. To their west is a (N)arrow (E)mission (L)ine (G)alaxy at 1.9 billion light-years by redshift. It may also be part of this group. Others at about 1.8 billion light-years are around NGC 4336. However, I found no mention of any cluster fitting that distance.

One faint asteroid is in the image as well as some quasar candidates (UvES) with only photographic distance determinations.

Conditions were poor for this image seeing was well below normal for the luminance frames and got really bad during the red frames. The FWHM of the red frames was more than twice that of green and blue. I stopped and took the green and blue the following night. I should have redone the red. It made for a processing nightmare that I only sort of compensated for. Why I didn't redo the red and the luminance I don't know. Apparently, I didn't think it as bad as it was.

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

Related Designations for NGC4536

NGC4559

NGC 4559 is a very low surface brightness blue galaxy. You may see the trend here. I'd planned on imaging a bunch of these guys this winter but most have been lost due to the lousy weather all year. Being of low surface brightness they aren't good targets for nights with moonlight. This galaxy is in the constellation of Coma Berenices and isn't far from the Virgo Cluster. Though it appears this galaxy is not a member of this huge group of galaxies. Its distance is hard to determine. Based on a supernova seen in 1941 it would be about 20 to 30 million light-years away. Its redshift distance is about 50 million light-years based on NED data though I've seen NASA claim its redshift says it is only 35 million light-years away. They don't give their source, however. If 50 million is right then it could be a member of the Virgo Cluster after all. And you thought we knew our nearby neighborhood better than that.

Some papers claim the blue color is due to a collision of the outer halo of this galaxy with a dwarf galaxy that has triggered massive star formation. Some even claim the dwarf galaxy is NGC 4559C (IC 1350). Seligman doesn't agree saying IC 1350 is a very different galaxy nor does he give any identification of the blob. This is the tiny blue blob seen in a faint outer arm on the right side of the galaxy. Most images of this galaxy don't go as deep as my shot and this blob is indeed separate from the galaxy in those shots. But to me, this looks like just another star knot. in an outer arm and not a separate galaxy at all. I can't find any redshift data on it. Again, It just shows how little we know about even nearby galaxies. The brightest galaxy besides 4559 in the image is NGC 4559A (IC 3592) at the lower left. It isn't related at all showing a redshift distance of about 340 million light years. There are a bunch of HII regions in this galaxy but they are all smaller than 3" of arc. My seeing on this image was 3.2" so no way I can show them. Using an H-alpha filter should bring them out. That will have to wait for another year. When I was processing this image I saw a funny dark arc (almost like a smile) below the nucleus. I was sure there was a problem with my flats and some dust had gotten in between the time I took the flats and I took the object. But I found it in observatory shots so it is real. It doesn't flow with the rest of the arms in ordinary light but does seem to fit in the ultraviolet image though is much broader in ultraviolet light.

Due to all the massive young stars, this galaxy emits a lot of ultraviolet light and is well seen by Galex. But its X-ray spectrum is inconsistent with what would be expected from the ultraviolet spectrum. Again, showing the universe still has a lot to teach us. You can see an ultraviolet photo of it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:NGC_4559_I_FUV_g2006.jpg taken by the Galex satellite. Notice how NGC 4559C also appears to be in that faint arm in that light as well. But in ordinary red light of the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey Plates, it appears totally detached from the galaxy. Note this image was taken with the 48" Schmidt telescope on Mt. Palomar but using film technology. Thus I can see far fainter parts of the galaxy using electronic detectors than a much larger scope can see using film. The exposure time is similar as well as the image scale. http://stdatu.stsci.edu/cgi-bin/dss_search?v=poss2ukstu_red&r=12+35+57.65&d=%2B27+57+36.0&e=J2000&h=15.0&w=15.0&f=gif&c=none&fov=NONE&v3=

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10'x2 RGB=3x10x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC4559

NGC4565

FGC 1471 is an edge on spiral galaxy in Coma Berenices. NED says it SA(s)b? with two cores separated by 0.8" one Sy3 the other Sy1.9. As I rather like flat galaxies like those in the FGC I'm working on imaging the more photogenic ones in the catalog. This is likely the best of the catalog so a good place to start. You probably know it by its more common names, NGC 4565 or the Needle Galaxy. NGC Project says Sb I. While red shift puts it at 70 million light-years a closer distance seems more likely as that would move it beyond the Virgo Cluster and require it to be enormous. NED has measurements ranging from 30 to 72, averaging about 42. APOD says 30 million light-years in several references to it. Its angular size argues for the smaller figure. I measure it at 16.5 minutes of arc from end to end. That would be 144,000 light-years, assuming the 30 million light-year distance making it considerably larger than our galaxy or the Andromeda Galaxy.

I'd not noticed before that its disk is warped at the ends. This though might be related to the second active region 0.8" from the galaxy core. If this is a merger situation that could have created the warp. At some wavelengths, the second active region is brighter than the core itself. This too could be due to it traveling though the galaxy in a merger situation though other explanations are possible as well. NGC 4562 appears to have an off-center core so the warping could be due to an interaction between the two in the past.

While exceedingly flat with little visible halo its rotation curve is nearly flat indicating a lot of unseen mass, dark matter probably.

NGC 4565 was discovered by William Herschel on April 6, 1785. Of course, it is in the original H400 program. My entry from April 23, 1985 on a fair night with a moon with the 10" f/5 at 150x reads, "Large edge-on galaxy with a very prominent dust lane and central bulge. Seems to be nearly as wide as the field of view. One of the few galaxies that looks like its picture. This one is a winner for a change." Somehow I was seeing the bulge as larger in comparison to the disk which means I likely wasn't seeing the full extent of the disk.

Two other galaxies share about the same redshift as NGC 4565. They are likely gravitationally bound to it as satellites or at least members of its group. I'll assume, they too, are much closer than their redshift would indicate at about the same distance as NGC 4565. NGC 4562 was discovered by Wilhelm Temple sometime in 1882. I couldn't find an exact date. It is typed as SBbc?. IC 3571 a smudge of an irregular galaxy was found by Max Wolf on a photograph he took on March 23, 1903. That's a pretty faint smudge for the film and telescopes of that day. I couldn't find the original image on the net.

I took a lot more data on this one but when I went to process it had horrid reflections I couldn't remove. What caused them is a mystery to me. This left me with only one sixth the color data and one third the luminance. All taken when lower in the sky with poorer seeing. I'll have to try yet again on this one. So far, since going digital, something has thwarted all attempts. This was the only one with usable color data and that is so thin it is very noisy. Somehow with all that against me, the image turned out far better than I expected. I doubt I could improve it much other than lowering the noise some. Note too it uses only 70 total minutes of data.

The WHL J123614.7+255457 galaxy cluster at 5.8 billion light-years by photographic redshift measurements is southwest of the galaxy. It has 11 members. The BCG for the cluster has no redshift data but is only one second of arc from the cluster's position so I used one label with a question mark for the galaxies distance. It appears many of the 11 members are also faintly visible in the area. Two other catalogs list this same cluster but without any galaxy count and with distances of about the same as those already mentioned. I didn't label them as things could get crowded with no real useful added data. To the southeast of this group is another, GMBCG J189.25931+25.84396 with 13 members at a distance of 3.5 billion light-years. In this case, the redshift-distance of the cluster and galaxy agree. But while the positions given for each are within a second of arc of each other the cluster has an error circle of 30 seconds of arc while the galaxy has one of 0.5" which matches my position for the BCG I've labeled.

Near the east edge of the image is another obvious galaxy cluster. No individual member has a redshift listed in NED. The cluster itself is NSCS J123523+255636 and has a redshift putting it about 3.4 billion light-years distant. I've drawn a line to the approximate center of the cluster. The error circle is 15" of arc so the position is the best I can do.

For such a studied region I found many of the position measurements surprisingly vague. Usually, NED has an error circle of 0.5" of arc but here the error circle was much larger. For the quasar, at 10.5 million light-years it was 37.5 seconds though with the help of the Sloan survey I was able to find it within about 13 seconds of the given location. Then there's the little cluster of galaxies off the southeast end of the galaxy. It has two designations with the same location but an error circle of 15" of arc. The position of the BCG was better at 1.5 seconds of arc. Still three times greater than what I'm used to. All had the same given position and were within <1" of my position so why the large uncertainty I don't know. But the differences continue. WHL J123647.1+255131 is listed as having 14 members at a redshift distance of 2.25 billion light-years while MaxBCG J189.19641+25.85862 at the same position is said to have 24 members at a distance of 2.35 billion light-years. The BCG, however, is listed at 2.20 billion light-years. As all are photographically determined the difference doesn't surprise me but the galaxy count difference does. Could be due to the larger count going out further from the center but why don't they specify that distance? Very frustrating to me. I could see it in a rather obscure part of the sky but this is a very highly studied region. NGC 4565 is listed by NED in 35 catalogs. 3 radio, 5 IR, 21 visual and 6 X-ray.

For the large number of faint fuzzies in the image, very few have any redshift data making for a surprisingly sparse annotated image. Apparently, all study the big ape in the room and ignore nearly everything else.

There is one lone asteroid in the image; (123365) 2000 WU31 at an estimated magnitude of 18.7.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=1x10'x3, STL=11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC4565

NGC4567

The pair of galaxies at the bottom of the image are NGC 4567 (top) and NGC 4568 (bottom). The other galaxy is NGC 4564. The pair is known as the Siamese twins and also known as the butterfly galaxies it is about 60 million miles away and part of the Virgo galaxy cluster. They are named the Siamese Twins because they appear to be connected. Though the lack of major tidal distortion indicates this is more an alignment artifact than they are really colliding. The strong dust lane that separates them would indicate they are close to each other, however. How far they are apart really is as yet unknown.

(Edit: This was a very early image from 2007 when I wrote little about them. I need to research this image as I do more modern ones. For now, I'll just add that that the twins were discovered by William Herschel on March 15, 1784. I was surprised that neither are in either of the H400 programs. NGC 4564 was discovered by Herschel the same night as the twins. It didn't make either program either. Either seeing was poor this night or my technique back then was poor. The image needs to be taken again. Seligman says NGC The pair of galaxies at the bottom of the image are NGC 4567 (top) and NGC 4568 (bottom). The other galaxy is NGC 4564. The pair is known as the Siamese twins and also known as the butterfly galaxies it is about 60 million miles away and part of the Virgo galaxy cluster. They are named the Siamese Twins because they appear to be connected. Though the lack of major tidal distortion indicates this is more an alignment artifact than they are really colliding. The strong dust lane that separates them would indicate they are close to each other, however. How far they are apart really is as yet unknown.

(Edit: This was a very early image from 2007 when I wrote little about them. I need to research this image as I do more modern ones. For now, I'll just add that that the twins were discovered by William Herschel on March 15, 1784. I was surprised that neither are in either of the H400 programs. NGC 4564 was discovered by Herschel the same night as the twins. Seligman says NGC 4567 and NGC 4567 are SA(rs)bc galaxies/. He classifies NGC 4564 as E6???. It didn't make either program either. Seeing was poor this night (April 22, 2007) or my technique back then was poor. The image needs to be taken again.)

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

Related Designations for NGC4567