NGC4699

NGC 4699 is a large flocculent galaxy low in Virgo. I can't find a consensus on its distance from us. NED puts it at 80 million light-years by redshift and has 4 non-redshift measurements that are quite inconsistent varying from 29 to 83 million light-years. Other sources give distances within this range. Averaging everything I found says 68 million light-years. The galaxy has a bright flocculent region most images pick up but it also has a very faint outer disk most don't pick up. Using the 68 million light-year distance I measure it at over 135,000 light-years in size but using just the bright portion most see it is about 75,000 light-years across.

Conditions were poor when I took this image both as to transparency and seeing. Add to that it is low in my sky and I missed picking up much detail in the inner portion of the galaxy. The spiral structure continues right to the very bright, but very small core. I lost the ability to see this except in the outer parts where it is not so finely structured. So the inner part that appears featureless is just due to bad seeing. Poor transparency limited my ability to pick up the outer faint regions. I suspect it is considerably larger than I was able to detect due to the poor transparency.

I was surprised to find this note at NED: "SB0: Bright nuclear point source embedded in elliptical bulge. The bulge is threaded by a short bar, oriented along the bulge major axis. The bulge/bar system is embedded in a smooth, featureless disk with the same P.A. as the bulge. No evidence of spiral structure." How did they miss the spiral structure? Everyone else sees it an SBb spiral.

Two asteroids are in the image. They appear quite dim for their estimated magnitude. Normally an asteroid brighter than 19.0 shows color traces in my LRGB images but neither do. Being low blue was a problem. Extinction was strong for blue compared to red. I knew that so took an extra blue frame to allow me to push the blue enough to retain color balance but it wasn't sufficient. The blue stack was still nearly twice as noisy as red and 50% noisier than green. Thus I don't trust the color data all that much. This is another for the reshoot list that likely will never be reshot.

It was discovered on January 18, 1784, by William Herschel. It is in the original H400 program. My entry from April 23, 1985 under poor foggy skies using no more than 50x with my 10" f/5 reads; "Bright, nearly round galaxy, otherwise featureless. I didn't see the bright nucleus mentioned as the whole galaxy seemed bright." Nor do I see it in my image but my night wasn't much better. Nor do I see it on the Sloan or POSS images. It is there, however. See this image with the galaxy stretched very differently than normal. https://cgs.obs.carnegiescience.edu/CGS/object_html_pages/NGC4699.html

Even with my poor transparency, I picked up a lot of background galaxies. Unfortunately only a very few had redshift data at NED. Why this region is so poorly studied I don't know. Two carry names that might lead you to believe they are connected with Hickson Compact Group 62 but that is a tight group of galaxies a couple degrees away. It is on my to-do list but likely will have to wait for another year.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RG=2x10' B=3x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC4699

NGC4710

NGC 4710 is located about 60-66 million light-years from us in Coma Berenices. It is classed S0-a by the NGC project and SA(r)0+? by NED. The (r) refers to the ring it appears to contain. It is seen edge-on, same as NGC 4762 (also an S0) in my previous post. Both have a ring-like region around the core and an extended much fainter disk. The main difference between them is that NGC 4762 is missing the expected dust lane while NGC 4710 has enough dust for several such galaxies but it is confined to the bright box-like core region which is highly unusual. This galaxy has been studied by the Hubble Space Telescope. They have a good explanation of what's going on at this link: http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic0914/

It was discovered by William Herschel on March 21, 1784. My entry for the original H400 program on March 14, 1985 on a night hurt by humidity using my 10" f/5 at 100x reads, "Small, faint, circular puff of a galaxy with a small but not starlike nucleus. A star two minutes east is the same brightness as the nucleus." While I see the star in my image this refers to and it does appear similar to the core the rest of the description indicates I was only seeing the very center part of the galaxy. I didn't give a size estimate to tell anything more.

While the box like core region with the "X" shaped bright regions is hard to see in the HST image it is rather obvious in mine. The tips of the "X" show as bumps above and below the normal rectangular core region. While not mentioned at the HST site I've seen other sources blame this on interaction with other galaxies. The Hamburger Galaxy NGC 3628 which is obviously interacting with its companion is a good example.

The other main galaxy in the image is IC 3806. Redshift puts it a bit further away at 79 million light-years. As redshift is greatly affected by random motion at this distance, its quite likely they are really both at about the same distance. IC 3806 is classed Sa? at NED. It has no obvious core but does have several bright regions near the core region. This would indicate a rather recent burst of star formation. Could that have occurred because of interaction with NGC 4710? No paper even hints at this as possible so apparently unlikely. Still, I can't help but wonder as both are irregular in some way. I'm not talking anything major here just they got close enough in the past to trigger the needed star formation in both to create their odd core regions.

The odd dust structure of NGC 4710, however, makes me wonder if it isn't due to it "digesting" a small, very dusty galaxy ala the Black Eye Galaxy. I sure wish we knew what it looked like face on.

One quasar is seen near the southwest end of NGC 4710. Otherwise I was able to find little of interest in my image. One minor galaxy cluster WHL J124952.9+145548 with 13 members and at an estimated distance of 4.6 billion light-years light travel time is located near the bottom of the image a bit left of center. It's position is 1 second of arc different than the galaxy I've marked it by in the annotated image. No distance is given for the galaxy however so that is represented as a question mark.

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

Related Designations for NGC4710

NGC4725

NGC 4725 is an often imaged galaxy in Coma Berenices. While red shift puts it at a distance of 69 million light-years most non-redshift estimates put it closer at say 41 to 43 million light-years. It is classified as SAB(r)ab pec Sy2 so has an active core and is classed as peculiar likely due to the large arm that wraps around it. It is a true one armed galaxy. How it got that way isn't known. The Seyfert 2 status would indicate a very active core with a feeding black hole. Could that be due to an interaction with another galaxy or one it ate? I found nothing on that, just a note that an arm like that can rotate either with the galaxy or against it. But since this is a true arm I assume it rotates with the galaxy though the note at APOD didn't say.

The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel, who else, on April 6 or 10, 1785. It is in the original Herschel 400 observing program. Two usually good sources, the NGC project and Seligman don't agree. Seligman has the earlier date.

My notes on NGC 4725 taken with my 10" f/5 on April 23, 1985 under fair but humidity dimmed skies with moonlight bothering using 50x reads: "Large, oval galaxy with a star-like nucleus. Two other very faint galaxies are in the same low power field."

One of the galaxies I mention must be NGC 4712 that was discovered by John Herschel on March 28, 1832. It is the other more normal looking spiral in the image. It isn't related to NGC 4725 as it lies some 200 million light-years away. It is classed as an Sbc? galaxy by Seligman and SA(s)bc HII by NED. Take your pick. The other I mentioned is likely NGC 4747 which is out of the frame to the northeast (upper left). It is also known as Arp 159. My entry for that shows all three galaxies so check it out if you haven't already.

An infrared shot taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope can be seen at:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050901.html
In false color, it shows the area of new star formation as red indicating this galaxy has a single arm though that is hard to see in light our eyes see. Though note the red in the Spitzer image agrees very closely to the blue regions in my image as the massive short-lived blue stars formed in this region of star birth have not yet lived out their short lives. So we see areas of new stars as blue while Spitzer sees them in infrared as red. Though Spitzer is looking at the dust and gas that these stars form out of while I'm seeing the light of the stars that formed out of this dust and gas.

This image is was one of my very early images. I reprocessed it but it needs retaking more correctly.

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

Related Designations for NGC4725

NGC4731

NGC 4731 is a very strange, distorted galaxy on the far side of the Virgo Cluster, about 65 million light-years distant though red shift puts it far closer. It even lies within the borders of the Constellation of Virgo. NED gives it the rather normal classification of SB(s)cd. This gives no hint of its strange, distorted shape. Reminds me of some sea slugs swimming through the ocean. Or maybe some sort of dragon. Others tell me they see a salamander. The NGC project's simpler classification system does indicate it is not ordinary classing it as SBc pec. Most sources attribute its distorted shape to it interacting with nearby NGC 4697 well out of my image to the northwest. Low in my image, however, is NGC 4731A. It too seems strange though most irregular galaxies have a rather messed up shape. NED classes it as Im pec. Could it have been harmed by coming too near NGC 4731? The more I look at it the more I see two small interacting spiral galaxies coming together in a "V" shaped pattern. I can't find any very high resolution images of it but I'm beginning to think it possible this is two galaxies rather than one. Yet another opinion is offered by a paper saying "Interaction. In contact with it to the east, and with each other, are two not dense companions 19 mag." Apparently, this is the "V" shaped structure and the two blue objects to the east (left). I see these two objects as star clouds created from the collision if my interpretation is correct. This needs a lot more study in my opinion.

NGC 4731 was discovered by William Herschel on April 25, 1784. It isn't in either of the Herschel programs.

Even though it is a member of the Virgo Cluster, a region rich in galaxies and far from the dust of our Milky Way, it is just outside of the area covered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. This meant little in the way of information for annotating the image. Being at -6 degrees my seeing wasn't all that good when this was taken so I didn't go as deep as usual nor form as sharp an image as I'd have liked. Also, that put it into the belt of geostationary satellites as seen from my latitude, many of which drifted through the frames. It was a pain dealing with all of them as their paths often overlap meaning data rejection stacks don't get rid of them. Also, such stacks remove the asteroids. As there are 5 in the image I didn't want to give up I had to deal with these birds the hard way doing manual data rejection.

Northwest of NGC 4731, in the area above a galaxy at 3.47 billion light-years and below LEDA 3082082 is, what appears to me to be, a distant galaxy cluster though none is listed there in NED.

Details on the 5 asteroids are shown on the annotated image along with the Minor Planet Center's estimate of their brightness.

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

Related Designations for NGC4731

NGC4753

Who scribbled on my galaxy?

Every time I think I've seen the ultimate strange galaxy a new one to top it turns up. This one has the record for now. I knew it had a few strange dust lanes but when so many popped out in the processing I was muttering words not suitable for this post. My mind does strange things when confronted with something unexpected. All I could imagine was God gave baby Jesus a crayon and paper to draw on and he scribbled on the galaxy instead of the paper. Coming back to some sanity it is obvious this is a merger situation. Stars thrown all over the place and dust lanes apparently scattered at random. One paper, however, has tried to make sense of it all and claims to have succeeded. It says the dust comes from a warped disk tilted at 15 degrees and twisted by differential precession. I'm not sure he can fit all this dust into his model but some does seem to match. You can read all about it at: http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1992AJ....104.1339S&link_type=ARTICLE&db_key=AST&high=

This is a member of the Virgo Cluster located about 60 million light-years away by Tully Fisher measurements. Its large angular size makes it an easy target for imagers yet it is ignored by virtually all who seem stuck in the rut of imaging the same stuff. The galaxy is in central Virgo less than three degrees east of the double star Porrima. It was discovered by William Herschel on April 12, 1784 and is on the original Herschel 400 observing list. My entry for it on April 23, 1985 at 50 power with my 10" f/5 under a light ground fog says: "Large, oval galaxy with a somewhat brighter but small (not starlike) nucleus." Most consider the nucleus starlike. Conditions likely caused me to miss it and it appears I never went back to look at it visually again for some reason.

With a lot more exposure time than my 40 minutes of luminance it should bring out much more of the diffuse plumes surrounding the galaxy. More time likely would allow the dust to be traced further from the core as well. I needed the high signal to noise ratio of the core region to bring out these dust lanes. I had to reduce my efforts to pull these out the further I got from the core as the lowered signal to noise ratio wouldn't support the severe processing needed to bring these out.

As usual, I've noted all objects with a redshift distance in NED. UvES objects are all quasar candidates with less precise photographic redshift determinations "p" after the look back time. Two faint and one somewhat brighter asteroids are in the image. Their magnitudes are estimates by the Minor Planet Center and don't appear all that accurate, at least in the case of (147658) 2004 JP41 which seems much fainter than its prediction. Otherwise, I didn't notice anything particularly noteworthy about these background galaxies.

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

Related Designations for NGC4753

NGC4762

NGC 4762 and NGC 4754 are said to be a pair of non-interacting galaxies. NGC 4762 is a rather odd galaxy seen exactly edge on. A bright star-like core is seen with a very narrow disk oddly missing any hint of a dust lane. This leads to it being classed as SB0? by the NGC project and SB(r)0^0^ at NED. The disk ends with a huge warped plume off each end. The south end curves sharply to the west but a faint plume continues southwest and another to the southeast. Off the northeast end of the upper plume, a narrow faint plume continues to the northeast. To have these various plumes it must have interacted with some other galaxy in the last billion years or so. Redshift puts its distance at about 60 million light-years. Unfortunately, the error bar is rather large at this range. Tully Fisher measurements show 55 million light-years while an analysis of its globular cluster's brightness put it at 78 million light-years. Pick one!

The companion is NGC 4754 which is also unusual as the outer oval is oriented about 45 degrees counterclockwise from the inner oval and bar. Again, this would seem to require an interaction with another galaxy. NED classes it as SB(r)0-: and the NGC project says simply SB0. Its redshift puts it at 77 million light-years which would support the non-interacting status if a true distance indicator. Analysis of its globulars using a somewhat different process than that used for NGC 4762 puts it at 46 million light years, Tully-Fisher measurements average 55 million light-years while an analysis of its surface brightness function puts it at 53 million light-years. Yet another globular cluster measurement using the same method as for NGC 4762 puts it at 60 million light-years. Averaging these gives 55 million light-years. Again a case of pick one.

Still, these measurements for each galaxy do overlap suggesting they may be really at about the same distance. Maybe they aren't non-interacting after all. There aren't any obvious candidates that I could find to cause the distortions both of these galaxies exhibit. So while not interacting today they may have a few hundred million years ago. I found nothing suggesting this, however.

The pair was discovered by William Herschel on March 15, 1784. Neither are in the two H400 observing programs.

There are two asteroids in the image. The obvious one is (7027) Toshihanda at magnitude 17.4. The naming citation reads: "Toshihiro Handa (b. 1959) is a research associate at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Tokyo. He works in the area of radio astronomy, studying interstellar matter in our Galaxy and nearby galaxies. He is also active in public outreach in astronomy and astrophysics."

The other is very hard to see. It is (157814) 1995 WU28 at magnitude 19.1. Its trail runs in front of NGC 4762 which pretty well drowns it out. See the annotated image for finding it. I took the L images on either side of the meridian with color frames in-between the first luminance series were taken mostly to the east side of the meridian while the last three were taken when it was on the west side.

Not much exciting in the annotated image except for the galaxy group SDSSCGB 02665 on the east edge of the image. It is said to consist of 4 members at 1.6 billion light years. Two appear quite bright. I see several other faint ones in the immediate area bringing the count to 6 or so rather than 4. Of the two bright galaxies, the upper one lies within a second of arc of the position given for the group. No redshift is given for the galaxy itself though it may look like it in the annotated image. That line, however, is pointing to the group's position. The southern bright galaxy does have redshift data and is identified. Several quasars lie just outside the boundaries of the image frame. Oddly redshift data is limited to the eastern side of this image.

There are two blue smudge galaxies in the image without any redshift distance. They could be members of the same group as the two major galaxies. I've identified them in the annotated image. [SDV2005] 226 is listed as a dwarf elliptical while VCC 2093 is listed as a dwarf E3 elliptical.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=7x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC4762

NGC4775

NGC 4775 is a small spiral with an off-center core and distorted spiral arms. When the core is well off center, as in the extreme example of NGC 5474, the galaxy is often said to be "sloshed" -- not drunk -- but like sloshing an uncooked egg in a frying pan before it congeals puts the yoke off center. Usually, this is due to tidal forces of a much larger galaxy such as M101 in the case of NGC 5474. In the case of NGC 4775, the cause may be something else.

NGC 4775 is located in Virgo, right in the geostationary satellite belt as seen from my latitude which created havoc with satellite trails right through the galaxy, several right on top of each other making removal "interesting" to say the least. Redshift puts it 88 million light-years distant while a single Tully-Fisher determination says 87 million light-years. A surprisingly similar result. If right it is beyond the main Virgo Cluster galaxies. NED classifies it as SA(s)d while the NGC project says Sc. At the 88 million light-year distance it is about 54,000 light-years across. Rather typical for a spiral galaxy.

It was discovered by William Herschel on April 17, 1784. It isn't in either H400 program.

This image was hurt severely by clouds. Only one blue frame and one luminance frame were reasonably free of clouds. This dropped my limiting magnitude severely. There are a lot more background galaxies than I was able to show. Though since this field is outside the Sloan Survey field only the brighter ones had any data in NED. All but one galaxy in the field that NED has redshift data for were seen in my cloudy image. The Abell Galaxy Cluster 1634 is centered southwest of NGC 4775. It is listed as class 1 which is 30 to 49 galaxies in an 18' diameter field with a distance of 2.4 billion light-years. Several of the galaxies have redshifts that are at about this distance. It is listed as morphology III which has no anchoring cluster galaxy. I've drawn a line to the position NED has for its center though they list its center only vaguely within a 2.5' error circle.

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

Related Designations for NGC4775

NGC4800

NGC 4800 is a nearly face-on spiral galaxy in Canes Venatici about 6 degrees west of M51. It is about 50 million light-years distant by redshift but nearly twice as distant, 94 million light-years by non-redshift measurements at NED. I have no idea which is closer to correct. Some sources said the distance was unknown or unavailable, one split the difference and said 72 million light-years. Nor did I find anything saying it was part of some galaxy local group. Though SIMBAD says it is a galaxy in a group of galaxies it doesn't tell me which they are.

Most online images (very few) show little detail in this galaxy, the exception is a couple HST images. I was rather surprised that it wasn't nearly as featureless as I had been led to believe from what few online amateur images I found of it. My reason for imaging it was simply that when nothing else is within my meridian based imaging window I'm working on Herschel 1 and 2 program objects I can reach from my 47 north latitude. It was discovered by William Herschel on April 1, 1788. Appropriate as it fooled me into thinking it wasn't as interesting as it turned out to be. Even my comments from the H400 program gave it short shrift. My entry on the excellent night of April 29, 1984 at 150x with my 10" f/5 only says "Bright center, slightly elongated, hints of detail, beside a dim star." Usually, I wrote more than that.

The annotated image shows a couple of probable errors in NED's database. Southeast of NGC 4800 is a galaxy NED says has a redshift of 5.986982 putting it nearly 13 billion light-years distant. This is beyond most quasars, certainly most I can image. No way I could see a galaxy at that distance. Even Hubble's deep field rarely goes that deep. To the southwest is another with a redshift of 3.767008 that puts it just over 12 billion light-years distant. While my image shows it as round, the Sloan image shows it an edge on spiral. I only picked up the core. Using NED's length of 0.19 arcminutes it would be 660,000 light-years across. Huge by today's standards but downright beyond belief for the early universe. I'm sure these distances are in error. Both are more distance by NED than any quasar in the image. I've marked them with ??? For those wishing to look into this, they are SDSS J125456.22+462553.2 and SDSS J125403.49+462527.8 respectively. Oddly they indicate both have proven spectroscopic redshift determinations.

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

Related Designations for NGC4800

NGC4845

NGC 4845 is an apparently warped, rather red, spiral galaxy in central Virgo. Redshift puts it about 72 million light-years distant and Tully Fisher estimates agree rather closely. William Herschel discovered it on February 24, 1786. It is a rather flat galaxy lacking much of a central bulge. In fact, a significant part of its core is hidden behind a rather thin dust lane indicating how small the core is. The galaxy is thought to have a rather small black hole in its core to go along with its small central bulge being only 300,000 times that of our sun. Still, in January of 2011, it is thought it's black hole might have devoured a rogue planet that got too close to its core. You can read about it at this link: http://www.universetoday.com/101172/astronomers-watch-as-a-black-hole-eats-a-rogue-planet/#more-%20%20101172 which contains a link to the paper the article is based on.

NGC 4845 has another mystery. It might be long lost NGC 4910. It was found by William Herschel prior to NGC 4845 on January 24, 1784 but he admitted his coordinates were poor. Here's what the NGC Project says on this matter:

"NGC 4910 may possibly be NGC 4845. There is nothing in WH's place, and Dreyer
quotes WH's note in the Scientific Papers: "The place of this neb. is not
determined with accuracy." Dreyer adds, "No modern observations known."

"WH referred two other nebulae -- NGC 4420 and NGC 4772 -- to the same
comparison star (75 Leo). For N4772, Dreyer notes, "RA 40 seconds too
great." This suggests that WH's RA for N4910 might also be too large. In
that case, NGC 4845 would be a candidate for WH's object. It is a large
galaxy at about the right declination. However, WH describes his nebula as
"eF, vL, er, R. 7 or 8 arcmin d[iameter]." N4845 is not quite that large,
nor is it round. It is, however, the only reasonable candidate, so I've
adopted the identity, though with a query. - Dr. Harold G. Corwin, Jr."

What caused the warping of NGC 4845? I found no papers even mentioning it is warped let alone discussing its warped nature. That mystery will remain unsolved for a while longer it appears. Or is the warp just an illusion? Looks real to my eye. NGC 4845 is one of the original Herschel 400 objects. All this gave me several reasons for putting it on my to-do list. My log entry dated April 23, 1985 using my 10" f/5 at 50x on a fair night with a moon simply reads: "Large, elongated galaxy, slightly brighter toward the center."

To the northeast is FGC 1530 a really flat blue galaxy seen edge on. Though no dust lane is seen. Redshift puts it 140 million light-years distant or twice the distance of NGC 4845. In this case, the Tully Fisher distance estimates for it are wildly discordant. One estimate from 2000 says it is only 5 million light-years away. Obviously, something is wrong with that estimate. Another from 2010 comes up with three results depending on the interpretation of the results. It gives 91, 92, 94 million light-years. That's only 65% of the distance redshift comes up with.

There were 5 asteroids in the image though 2 are so faint they didn't survive the JPEG compression. I left their location marked as some faint hint is still seen of them. Their details are in the annotated image. This field is one not covered well by catalogs other than those that reference galaxies by their coordinates. For those, I just use G or Q for Galaxy or Quasar without including their coordinate name as that is available by plate solving my image. UvES objects are listed as being quasar candidates with only photographic redshift measurements.

Conditions were poor for this one. While seeing was only somewhat below average this night, like the previous one had rapidly falling temperatures. So rapid that tube currents developed again flattening stars though not as much as the previous night. This put a lot of ice crystals into the air which dimmed the image as well as creating huge halos around bright stars, especially the brilliant F2 HD 112542. Even though it was only 7th magnitude its glow covered one third of the image making for processing nightmare.

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

Related Designations for NGC4845

NGC4866

UGC 08091 is a dwarf irregular galaxy likely part of our local extended group of galaxies. Distance estimates ranged from 3 million to 7 million light-years with 3.65 million light-years being the median value of 15 estimates at NED. Redshift is worthless this close. It would indicate about 24 million light-years which is certainly not reasonable. The galaxy is full of star knots in what appears to be a random pattern. It is located in Virgo so is seen against the Virgo cluster of galaxies but isn't a member of that group, nor is the other major galaxy in the image NGC 4866. UGC 08091 has a very blue color indicating a lot of recent star formation as such stars live only a few million to tens of millions of years rather than the 10 billion years a star such as our sun would live.

NGC 4866 lies at a distance of about 100 to 110 million light-years by redshift though some other estimates place it closer at about 52 million light-years. If correct that would put it in the Virgo cluster but most of the measurements place it in the 80 to 95 million light-year range. The majority would argue that it lies beyond the Virgo cluster. It is a starburst galaxy that NED classes as SB(rs)bc with HII emission. That emission is confined to the core region where the starburst activity is going on but hidden from our view by the obscuring dust around the core. Otherwise, it appears a rather dead galaxy as the disk stars are mostly of a slightly cooler type than our sun making it appear star formation in the disk ceased millions or even billions of years ago.

NGC 4866 was discovered by William Herschel on January 14, 1787. It is in the original Herschel 400 observing program. My entry from April 23, 1985 with my Cave 10" f/5 at 50 power due to poor transparency from ground fog reads: "Edge on galaxy with two bright objects near the center. One may be a star but seeing has deteriorated too much to tell for sure." Apparently, I was seeing the blue star and core of the galaxy though the star doesn't appear "near" the center and the core is in the exact center. Maybe my brain was as foggy as the skies that night.

As with many images, this spring weather did a number on this one. I had to throw out 3 of 7 luminance frames 3 of 5 red and green frames and 2 of 4 blue frames due to clouds killing the data beyond usefulness. I'm surprised I got as much as I did.

As usual, I happened across a couple galaxies not in NED. The faint fuzzy to the southwest of NGC 4866 was one I hoped to find something on. Is it a close dwarf of very low surface brightness or just what is it. I know it isn't a reflection as it shows in the Sloan Survey image but isn't in NED's database of Sloan data. Another galaxy to the far east was missing too when I looked it up. Usually, it is the faint blue fuzzy that gets missed as with the first one mentioned but this second one doesn't fit that description. An HST image of it can be seen at: http://cseligman.com/text/atlas/ngc4866hst.jpg

One distant fuzzy is listed in NED's Sloan data as both a galaxy and a quasar. Since they preferred the quasar label I listed it that way first on the annotated image. At only 3.62 billion light-years it is rather dim for a quasar. It's in the lower right corner. Near the upper right corner is a small galaxy cluster. The position is about 1 second of arc different from the big cluster galaxy that anchors the group. I put the label on the big cluster galaxy as it overlapped the position of the cluster. Both have a photographically determined redshift which don't agree. I have no idea which is the one most likely to be closest to the correct distance. They only vary by 150 million light-years so this isn't a major issue.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10' though one green is not contributing much, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC4866