NGC5033

NGC 5033 is a much imaged spiral galaxy in Canes Venatici. Distance estimates range from 38 to 60 million light-years. NED's redshift and non-redshift measurements put it about 55 million light-years out while APOD says 40. It is classified as SA(s)c;HII Sy1 at NED. Seligman simply says Sc?. In any case, it is a rather disturbed galaxy. That may explain its Seyfert 1 status. The arms appear pulled out and highly warped out of plane. They are rather faint making this a more difficult imaging target than many beginners realize. Virtually all my posts have north at the top. This is an exception. East is at the top with north to the right. It looked better to my eye flat than on edge. While neither NED nor Seligman see a bar one paper I saw said it may have a triple bar but most deny it has any bar at all, even those using the same images that first was said to show the triple bar.

This is another of my early images and needs a lot of work or a reshoot. I didn't do much if any research on my objects back then. For now, I'll just say it was discovered by William Herschel on May 1, 1785. It is in the original H400 program. Apparently, I wasn't much impressed as my notes from April 28, 1984 simply say, "Smaller, fainter version of NGC 5005. But still a good object. Several unplotted (on my atlas) seen in the area." It appears I wasn't seeing the arms at all, just the core region. Not surprising as they are rather faint.

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

Related Designations for NGC5033

NGC5053

NGC 5053 is a rather distant globular cluster in Coma Berenices near the much brighter and more famous M53 globular. It is probably about 53,000 light-years away. I measure it at about 160 light-years across, rather large for a globular. For being so distant it appears rather large in angular size but not at all condensed like many globulars. It is being torn apart by tidal forces and has a 6 degree long tidal tail stripped by our galaxy's gravity. It was discovered by William Herschel on March 14, 1784. It is in the second H400 program. Some say it may be a captured globular that originally belonged to the Sagittarious Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy. That galaxy wasn't found until 1994 and is now being eaten by our galaxy.

There are quite a few background galaxies in the image. This is a very old image before I did any research so I have nothing on them as yet. The most obvious to the northwest is PGC 46161. It is about 60 million light-years away. The rest will have to wait until I have time to work on this one and reprocess the very old image. There is one asteroid in the image. It is (184248) 2004 SX11 at a predicted magnitude of 19.6.

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

Related Designations for NGC5053

NGC5068

This is one of my failures. Still in keeping with posting those as well as the successes here goes anyway.

NGC 5068 is a face on, nearby spiral galaxy in southern Virgo. Redshift measurements are rather inaccurate for nearby galaxies. Using other methods NED comes up with a distance of 20 million light-years while others like Wikipedia say 22 million light-years. The galaxy has a lot of HII regions and O stars that are bright enough I should have picked them up but that didn't happen but for one HII region. The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on March 10, 1785. It is in the second Herschel 400 Observing Program of the Astronomical League.

The galaxy is at 21 degrees south, 6 below my usual cutoff declination. On really good nights I can catch some detail this low. Unfortunately while the night started out fairly decent I started with color data when it was lowest but as it approached the meridian seeing kept getting worse so my usual tactic of capturing luminance nearest the meridian backfired with the red data taken lowest in the sky the best. Also transparency, never good this low, also went down hill so it doesn't go as deep as I normally do. This one is in dire need of a retake if seeing ever allows it. Stars are elongated due to atmospheric dispersion this low in the sky. It was made worse by the deteriorating seeing.

For a HST image of the galaxies central region see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_5068#/media/File:NGC_5068_HST_Wiki.jpg

The bright asteroid is 13th magnitude (247) Eukrate. It is most likely a carbonaceous asteroid. Radar data shows it to have a diameter of 83 ± 9 miles. It was discovered by Robert Luther on March 14, 1885. It is named for a sea nymph of Greek mythology.

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

Related Designations for NGC5068

NGC5100

On January 23, 1784 William Herschel found a galaxy. He recorded the RA but not the declination except in general terms. He never went back to it. Tempel decided it didn't exist. Dreyer, after consulting Herschel's notes decided it was the same galaxy Marth had found on March 22, 1865. Still, he gave it two numbers, 5100 for Marth and 5106 for Herschel. There's some question however that 5100 really is what WH was trying to record that night. For more on this see notes for either galaxy at the NGC Project.

Today NED not only considers this galaxy NGC 5100 but also lists the interacting spiral to the northwest as part of NGC 5100 making it a double galaxy. But the entry for NGC 5106 only refers to the bright galaxy. It appears neither Marth nor either Herschel saw this companion. The companion carries its own designation on several catalogs including VII Zw 295 which is the catalog entry that attracted this pair to my attention in the first place. The pair are in north central Virgo, 450 million light-years distant. I measure the NGC galaxy at 130,000 light-years across. Likely that has been increased due to interaction with the companion. It will likely settle down to a somewhat smaller size. I measure the companion at 120,000 light-years across, nearly the same size but it appears even more drawn out by the interaction as it has one well-formed arm on the west to north while the eastern south going arm is an ill-formed squiggle, that likely was a nice arm before getting mangled in the collision. Assuming they actually are at the same distance their centers are only 90,000 light-years apart. Likely the separation is considerably greater. Still, I wish there was a way to create a time-lapse movie of what has happened to these two and what will happen in the future.

To the northeast is a ring galaxy ASK 450821.0 at 650,000 light-years. The core is off center but the gap between the ring and core is not nearly as empty as in many rings. I found nothing on it. I measure it at a bit over 60,000 light-years across at its redshift distance. This takes into account it was slightly closer when the light we see started on its way here and thus is seen slightly larger than it would if we saw it's light at its redshift distance. I usually start making this adjustment at 500,000 light-years look back time.

Three rather faint asteroids snuck into the image. See the annotated image for their details.

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

Related Designations for NGC5100

NGC5112

NGC 5107 and 5112 are a pair of blue, non interacting, spiral galaxies. Red shift puts them at about 55 million light years. Tully-Fisher measurements of 5107 range from 45 to 76 million light-years while those for NGC 5112 cover an even wider range of 59 to 101 million light-years. While that makes it possible they aren't at all close to each other I have to think their similar redshift is no coincidence and they are a related pair. It was discovered by William Herschel on March 17,l 1787. It's not in either H400 program

NGC 5107 is classed as SB(s)d? by NED and SBcd by the NGC project. The question mark indicates some uncertainty about the wide arm (d) classification. It certainly is hard to tell from our perspective. It has some interesting knots in the arms northwest of the core that are brighter than the galaxy's core. I'd love to see this one more face on.

NGC 5112 is seen nearly face on. Its arm structure is rather disorganized. NED classes it as SB(rs)cd while the NGC project says SBc. Even face on there is some debate over the c or d classification of the arm structure. William Herschel found this one the same night as NGC 5107. It isn't in either program either.

All redshift has been converted to "light travel time" distances using NED's 5-year WMAP calculations. That is the time the light has taken to reach us since it left the object. The object was closer when the light was emitted and is currently further away. The universe's expansion all those billions of years causes the light to have to travel longer and further than it would have in a static universe. In that time the object has been carried much further away. In fact for those with a very high redshift they are currently so distant the light they emit "today" will never reach us as they are being carried away at a speed greater than the speed of light.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x10' RB=3x10'x3 G=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5112

NGC5149

NGC 5149 and 5154 are a pair of galaxies in Canes Venatici discovered by William Herschel on May 1, 1785. They are about 270 million light-years distant by redshift measurement. They don't appear to be interacting though if they are truly at the same distance then they are only 470,000 light-years apart. More likely there is a few million light-year difference in their distance making the separation greater. Neither are in the H400 programs.

NGC 5149 is classified as SBbc by NED and Seligman but SBb by the NGC project. It is rather strange as the core is elongated north and south while the arms, which usually come off the ends come off the east and west sides. Both sides separate the arm from the core with a dust lane that is much stronger on the west side than the east side. The inner arm structure is rather chaotic as well. Though not in a way indicating interaction with its neighbor. At least I found no papers suggesting they were an interacting pair. I measure its size at about 125,000 light-years making it a bit larger than our galaxy which is considered a big one.

NGC 5154 is a face on spiral classified as Scd: and Scd? by Seligman. The colon is about the same as a question mark so they agree. The NGC project, however, says Sc. To me that's a better classification. I suppose it is the southern arm that is pulled out some that accounts for the cd? classification. That arm is very odd. It doesn't seem to come from either of the other two or the inner ring. Instead, it starts from a blue star cloud and arcs out rather comet-like. Seemingly not part of the galaxy. Maybe it is the remains of something it is eating but with the very blue "head" I doubt that is the case. I measure it slightly larger at about 127,000 light-years. So they are both about the same actual size.

There's a third galaxy also at the 270 million light-year distance. It is northeast of NGC 5154, ASK 530316.0. I found no classification for it. I'd call it an irregular blue galaxy. While it appears small that is mostly due to its distance as it is a respectable 31 million light-years across. I'd love to see a closeup from the HST of this one.

The image contains some quasars (Q) and some candidate quasars (UvES and CQ). The candidates only have a photographic redshift. Some of these are just stars and will be rejected as candidates but I have no way of knowing which. I find those labeled UvES tend to confirm as quasars while those labeled CQ fail more often. This is only my observation and it may be skewed by many factors I'm not aware of.

There's an interesting little galaxy group NED calls a Galaxy Cluster so it is labeled GC but with only 5 or 6 members I'd call it a galaxy group. While NED lists 6 members, I see only 5 in a nice little chain on the west side of my image. Looking at the deeper SLOAN image I again only see 5. There is an anonymous galaxy to the upper left east of ASK 530347.0 that might be the 6th I suppose. Without a size given for the group, I can't tell. It looks a bit closer to my eye but that is often misled. NED lists its distance of 1.77 billion light-years as an estimate. How that estimate is made I have no idea.

Conditions were poor for this one and I had to throw out one luminance frame though my system again missed this. It is supposed to retake such frames but lately, I'm noticing it isn't doing so. I can't figure out why. Actually, it threw out two but only took one replacement same as my previous post. Also, one green had to be thrown out as well and it wasn't retaken either. I have to figure out why I'm not retaking these clouded out duds. At least green is the least important color so it didn't hurt the color in any significant way that I can detect.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=3x10' RB=2x10' G=1x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5149

NGC5171

NGC 5171 is the brightest member of the NGC 5171 group of galaxies located in northeast Virgo about 330 million light-years distant. It is a subgroup of the very large galaxy cluster ZwCl 1327+1145 which is some 117 minutes of arc across (my field is only 33.4 minutes of arc across) and contains 449 members. It, in turn, is comprised of two subgroups, one of which is also about 320 million light-years distant though I found no size or galaxy count for it. The group is defined as open which means there is no central condensation but there are local ones such as the NGC 5171 group.

The NGC 5171 group is bright in X-ray emission which oddly isn't centered on any galaxy but is brightest in an area between NGC 5171, 5176 and 5179. A paper on it is at http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2004MNRAS.355...11O .

NGC 5171 and 5176 are connected with an optical bridge of stars. Oddly, I found nothing on this, however (it doesn't match the X-ray emission). It would seem these two are likely interacting in some way. Oddly the brightest plume from NGC 5171 is to the south and not between these two galaxies. The article cited above does hint that NGC 5171 may be the result of the merger of two or more galaxies in the recent past. Of course, it is thought most major elliptical-like galaxies in groups like this are the result of mergers so this isn't exactly major news.

Due to space limitations, I didn't include names of all cluster members, only those for which NED has classified them as to type. The distance will tell you if it is a cluster member.

NGC 5171 was discovered by George "Jupiter" Hough on May 5, 1883: NGC 5176 and NGC 5177 were discovered by Ernst Hartwig on June 29, 1883: NGC 5178 was first recorded by William Temple on May 11, 1883 while NGC 5178 was found by Sherburne Burnham on May 5, 1883. All in 1883 but by 4 different astronomers. Two on the same day but by different astronomers who worked together at Dearborn Observatory in Chicago. Hough got his nickname because of his study of the Jovian system.

There are several quasars in the image and 4 asteroids. One is rather interesting, 2013 JF42. When I looked it up the minor planet center says of it "Wait for recovery survey". This usually means the asteroid's orbit wasn't determined well and it is now lost. Yet it is right where the prediction put it. From this, I am guessing my image was taken within a day or two of its discovery. I wasn't able to determine that date. The image was taken May 6, 2013 about 6 hours UT. The J in the provisional name indicates it was discovered sometime between May 1 and May 15th so this may explain why I could find it. We do know from its name it was the 1056th asteroid discovered during that 15 day period. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_designation for how this is calculated.) At magnitude 20.9 (Minor Planet Center's estimate) it is just barely within my limits of detection unless I move the scope at a rate to match typical asteroids in the main belt. Due to the high compression of the annotated image, you may need to find its location there then blow up the lower compressed full image to see it. My normal limit is about 20.5 for asteroids without tracking on them. In this case, it was moving slow enough the trail was short so the asteroid was barely visible.

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

Related Designations for NGC5171

NGC5174

NGC 5174 is an immense spiral galaxy in northern Virgo about 320 million light-years distant. I measure its size as a bit over 360,000 light-years ( I could argue for 420,000 light-years including parts seen in the FITS but not the processed image) which makes it one of the largest known spiral galaxies though I found no one mentioning this. When I went to frame the shot 71 Virginis was a problem. I moved the field north to put it out of the field but that created a nasty ghost image that wouldn't go away until I moved the field well north. That brought in what appeared to be an interesting galaxy and got rid of the ghost. Turned out a huge glare from the star still came into the field and partly across the western side of the galaxy. Also, that "interesting" galaxy turned out to be a rather featureless red and dead S0 galaxy. It took a lot of processing to get rid of the glare from 71 Virginis but in the end, it turned out fairly well.

NGC 5174 was discovered by William Herschel March 15, 1784 but is not in either Herschel 400 observing program. Later Lewis Swift saw the galaxy on April 19, 1887 but got the coordinates a bit wrong. This caused it to be listed as NGC 5162 in the NGC by Dryer giving it two NGC entries. But Herschel isn't blameless either in that he saw the galaxy as double. It is thought he saw the star in the southern part of the galaxy that is now NGC 5175. Though some make the argument that he was referring to the HII region to the north that appears as a much dimmer blue object in my image. Many doubt that was within Herschel's capabilities, however. I would have to agree. NED classifies it as Scd: while the NGC project and Seligman say Sc. Quite a few other galaxies at about its distance are seen in the image, all much smaller, however.

There's a strange looking galaxy to the west of NGC 5174, ASK 411027.0. It is much smaller and classified as Scd by NED. It certainly doesn't appear to be one in my image. It looks like a barred spiral with one arm. Even the Sloan image of it looks much the same. Along the west edge is a pair of galaxies, one spherical, ASK 511065.0 at 2.04 billion light-years and the other a sliver of a galaxy just to its right. That one isn't listed at NED or SIMBAD. Why it is overlooked I don't know.

This image was jinxed in another way. Seems somehow I forgot to turn on the cooling fan. Since it was a rather cold night at first all was well but then the ambient temperature rose and I lost regulated cooling. One green and one red frame had such a temperature drift (10C) across the images I couldn't even calibrate them and finally had to toss them. One luminance frame was hurt a well with a 2C drop but I was able to recreate that close enough to make it work but needed more noise reduction than I'd have normally used by quite a margin. Fortunately, I could limit that to the background for the most part.

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

Related Designations for NGC5174

NGC5183

NGC 5183 was my original object as it is an Sb pec galaxy per NED and would fit into Arp's "One Heavy Arm" classification. Oddly the arm starts out rather narrow and somewhat red then after a short gap turns blue and gets very bright and broad dominating the galaxy's west side. The east side is very faint and somewhat extended making for the illusion a "sloshed" (off center) core at first glance though that's not the case. It is rather large as well as I measure its size at about 125,000 light-years. While NED considers it peculiar the NGC project classifies it simply as S... and Seligman doesn't even have a classification or much of anything on it.

To the northeast is NGC 5184 a more normal looking SAB(r)c galaxy according to NED. I can't say I see a much of a bar, maybe a hint of one going east-west. The NGC Project doesn't see one at all saying is Sb so doesn't agree as to the arm structure either. Again Seligman doesn't classify it. In what very few online amateur images of it I find it is very blue, even to a blue core. Instead, I am showing a galaxy that is showing signs of turning into a red and dead galaxy. There's not much blue to it. Just white and then redder parts with only a few hints of blue in the outer reaches of it. Has something, say its black hole, shut down star formation by warming the dust and gasses too much for it to condense into stars? I find nothing much to address this issue so that's just my speculation as it seems to have plenty of dust and gas to form stars. I measure its size as only slightly less than NGC 5183 at about 116,000 light-years

The field is located in central Virgo with the above two NGC galaxies being about 210 million light-years distant so not members of the Virgo Cluster. Both were discovered by William Herschel on April 11, 1877. Neither are in either of the Herschel 400 observing programs.

The field has two more NGC galaxies, these discovered by Albert Marth on April 12, 1864. They are the Sa? spiral 5192 and the S0- NGC 5196 toward the left side of the image. These are further away with the spiral at a half billion light-years and 115,000 light-years in diameter and the spherical galaxy somewhat closer at 310 million light-years. It is the smallest at only about 60,000 light-years in size. The NGC project classifies these two as Sa (no question mark) and S0 (no minus sign). The minus sign indicates it may be somewhat between E and S0 but closer to S0. Seligman has nothing on these two either.

There's a lot to see in this image thanks to it harboring the northern condensation of galaxies in the Abell 1750 cluster. I count 123 annotated objects making this one of my densest images to date. Near the center of Abell 1750N on the lower left of my image is the triple galaxy VII Zw 339 at about 1.11 billion light-years. The three elliptical-like galaxies all seem to inhabit the same elongated halo of stars. Many other galaxies at about the same distance are in the area since it is a true galaxy cluster. The southern part is below my field and centered somewhat west of the northern section.

To the northwest of the center of the image is another orange triplet of elliptical-like galaxies though they don't seem to inhabit one halo, it may just be too faint for the horrid conditions I had when taking this data. The southern member is the brightest and is considered the Bright Cluster Galaxy anchoring a Galaxy cluster of 23 galaxies. The distance to the galaxy is about 1.73 billion light-years and a bit further to the middle one if redshift is correct. I found no redshift for the northern one, however.

This field may have more annotated objects than any I've done to date. I counted 124 including the asteroid. Normally a 19.5 magnitude asteroid would be easy to see on one of my images, even one moving as fast as this one was in retrograde. Its faintness is a good indication of how poor transparency was this May 5 night.

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

Related Designations for NGC5183

NGC5201

NGC 5201 is a very strange, huge galaxy in Ursa Major between the last two stars in the handle of the Big Dipper. Redshift measurements put it some 400 million light-years distant. Its huge arms or plumes spread out to cover a width of about 225,000 light-years. NED classifies it simply as S? Oddly no one seems to tack on a peculiar label. Arp didn't include it in his Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies either. Though the NGC Project says under Catalog Notes that it is peculiar. The UGC says: "Complex spiral pattern in center region, 2 smooth asymmetric outer arms. No disturbing object visible." NED, on the other hand, lists a brightening in one arm or plume as a galaxy. A red starlike feature southeast of the core as a galaxy and a blue starlike object just a couple seconds of arc further southeast as either a star, a galaxy and a rejected candidate quasar. All have redshifts that put them also about the distance of NGC 5201 though two are simply friend of a friend determinations which basically assumes them to be about the same distance. Only the blue starlike object has a spectroscopic redshift.

While I found nothing to back this up, to me it appears these odd "spiral arms" may be the remains of galaxies it has or is cannibalizing. Possibly the two close objects to the southeast are the remains of two it's eating. The red object on the northwest side of the core is just a field star in our galaxy and not at all involved with NGC 5201.

It has many "tiny" companions in the area. While they look tiny they are actually of reasonable size, only their great distance and the presence of the gigantic NGC 5201 make them seem small. The S0-like or edge on spiral to the west is really over 40,000 light-years across. MCG +09-22-070 at the top of the image is a very normal sized spiral galaxy at a bit over 72,0000 light-years in diameter. ASK 241237.0 and ASK 241235.0 also companions are 27,000 and 29,000 light-years across. By my speculation, it is galaxies like these two that have been cannibalized by NGC 5201 accounting for it plumes.

NGC 5201 was discovered by William Herschel on April 14, 1789. However, it isn't in either of the two Herschel 400 observing programs.

For some reason, I took three blue frames rather than my normal two.

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

Related Designations for NGC5201