NGC5425

SN 2011ck was discovered by Jack Newton and Tim Puckett May 12, 2011 at magnitude 15.9. I imaged it June 2 and get a magnitude of 16.6. The image was taken on 2011, June, 2.26 If correct it is fading. SN2011by and SN2011dh were quite blue, this one shows a reddish color. Like the one in M51 it is listed as type IIP. The supernova is in NGC 5425, a galaxy about 100 million light years away in Ursa Major. NED classes it as Sd while the NGC project says Sc. These indicate widely spaced arms. While seen rather edge on the arms are hard to detect. I have trouble seeing them as this wide.

NED shows the blue knot at the southeast (lower left) end of the galaxy as a completely separate galaxy with about the same redshift. Again, it is hard to tell if it is a separate galaxy or just a knot in the arm. If the latter then the core of the galaxy is off center. Certainly a possibility but not necessarily the case. NGC 5425 was discovered by Lewis Swift on June 16, 1884.

The field has 3 quasars out to nearly 11 billion light years. Two are very blue even after red shift has greatly reddened their light.

Not having a pre SN image of the galaxy I've attached a Sloan Survey image taken prior to the supernova.

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

Related Designations for NGC5425

NGC5448

NGC 5448 is an interesting spiral in the southeast corner of Ursa Major. Redshift puts it 100 million light-years distant though Tully-Fisher measurements average out to about 120 million light-years. A rather good agreement actually. Assuming the 100 million light-year distance it is about 120,000 light-years in diameter making it a rather large spiral. NED classifies it as (R)SAB(r)a with and having an AGN (Active Galactic Nucleus). The NGC Project disagrees say simply it is SBb. It has a faint outer disk beyond a bright ring-like feature created by its spiral arms that nearly overlap. To my eye, the outer disk appears warped. That may be an illusion. It was much stronger in the FITS files than when processed with color added. No papers on it that I found mentions any warp so it likely is an illusion I can't shake. It also has some strange dark lanes across the disk inside the ring on the south side. Looks like a tot drew them in with a crayon. It was discovered by William Herschel on May 15, 1787. It is in the second H400 program.

There are some rather interesting truly distorted galaxies in the image that I didn't realize were there until I started looking around the field. Southeast of NGC 5448 is ASK 401001.0 at 390,000 light-years and further southeast is ASK 401000.0 also at 390,000 light years. They both appear "sloshed". That is their cores are well off center. Is this due to a near collision between these two sometime in the past? Then north of these two is ASK 401014.0 at 900,000 light-years. It is a nearly edge-on disk galaxy with an oddly warped disk. The eastern side is quite curved but the western side is less bent.

My color data was severely hit by thickening clouds. Red was taken when it was rather clear but the clouds moved in on the first green. It is very weak. The second green mostly blank. The first blue was weak but usable with the last blue lost to clouds. I never had a chance to reshoot it. I mostly recreated the green channel. While I cut down the red and boosted the blue it resulted in some poor color, especially for the distant galaxies which tended to look more orange than golden. I tried to adjust for NGC 5448 and ignored what it did to the distant galaxies.

There's a lot of fine detail in NGC 5448 I didn't catch due to the seeing. If I can ever get a night for 0.5" pixels it should really show some nice features lost to the gunk. With my large backlog of unprocessed images, I should just ignore those like the this and the last two I've posted. But then most of the spring was this way so I'd wipe out the backlog with one big delete. So I'm processing anything I can sort of salvage.

14" LX200R, L=4x10' R=2x10' G=1x10+pseudo green B=1x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5448

NGC5466

NGC 5456, like NGC NGC 5053, is a distant globular cluster that is likely being torn apart by our galaxies tidal forces. It is about 50,000 light-years distant and has a 45 degree long tidal tail of stars our galaxy is ripping away from it. The loss of stars likely accounts for its rather sparse appearance for a globular cluster though its core stars likely don't feel our galaxy's tidal forces. But if their orbit carries them to the outer parts of the cluster then they are fair game for the galaxy to steal them away. The cluster was found by William Herschel on May 17, 1784 in the constellation of Bootes. You can read about the tidal tail here: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0511/0511767v1.pdf

It is in the original H400 program. My notes with my 10" f/5 at 120x on a fair but humid hurt night read: "Large, very faint globular with only a hint of resolution. Evenly bright with no condensation in the center. Seems nearly round rather than oval as the preliminary guide indicates." It does seem slightly oval in my image to the NE and SW. Is that seen visually?

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

Related Designations for NGC5466

NGC5474

NGC 5474 is the classic example of a "sloshed" galaxy. As a satellite of M101, it was once thought its core was pulled off center by the gravity of the much larger M101. That's not quite the case. M101's gravity is involved but it is causing the contents of the galaxy to slosh back and forth much like a not congealed egg in a frying pan when the pan is moved back and forth. Note that you can see stars on the "missing" side. Just very few. So it hasn't lost the stars, just moved them to the other side temporarily. Adam Block has a bit more on this subject at: http://www.caelumobservatory.com/obs/n5474.html so I'll let you read it there.

It is classified as Sc? by Seligman and SA(s)cd pec HII by NED. It was first recorded by William Herschel on
This is a very early image of mine before I researched my images and before I really knew what I was doing. I reprocessed it a bit back in 2008 but it needs a lot more work if I ever find the time.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x10' RGB=2x10x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5474

NGC5485

NGC 5485 is a strange galaxy. It shows a nice SA0 shape but then has a totally unexpected red dust band at nearly right angles to the major axis of the galaxy. Some claim it is a polar ring galaxy. http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-ref?bibcode=2017A%26A...606A..62T.

It is located less than a degree from M101. Though over 4 times more distant so therefore not a member of the M101 group as some websites say. This field contains 4 NGC galaxies that appear to be part of a local group. Only NGC 5486 has a redshift that doesn't fit but the non-redshift distance estimates for all four are a good match. I suspect NGC 5486 just has a different redshift because of its orbit around the center of mass of this group. Quite a few other galaxies in the field also lie at a distance that makes them likely lesser members of the group.

Inside the halo of NGC 5485 to the southeast, there's something that to me appears to be a near edge on galaxy seen right through the stars of NGC 5485. Neither NED nor SIMBAD show anything at its position. I expected NED to at least know about it but apparently not.

Just southwest of NGC 5485 is a fuzzy blob of a galaxy. NED lists it as the star SDSS J140706.41+545838.9 but gives a spectroscopic redshift that puts it about 120 million light-years distant. Thus it appears to really be a galaxy and may be a dwarf member of the group. Why NED insists on listing it as a star I don't know. SIMBAD doesn't list it at all.

NGC 5473 was discovered by William Herschel on April 14, 1789 as was NGC 5484, NGC 5485 and NGC 5486. He was having a very productive night it would seem. NGC 5473 made the original Herschel observing program. My entry for that on May 17, 1985 with my 10" f/5 on a fair night hurt by high humidity at up to 120x reads: "Small, slightly oval galaxy with a star-like nucleus. Near a chain of a few field stars." Odd I didn't mention seeing NGC 5485. It may be a more difficult visual object as it only made it into the Herschel 2 observing program. I found only a very few amateur images of this galaxy. The only amateur images I found of these galaxies was a few wide field shots of M101 that happened to pick them up. I was happy to see the imagers knew they were in the image. How many took the field and didn't realize what the small galaxies were? Without searching hundreds of wide field M101 images.

The rest of the field is rather typical of my images.

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

Rick



http://www.mantrapskies.com/image-archive/NGC/NGC5485-NGC5484-NGC5473-NGC5486/NGC5485L4X10RGB2X10.JPG
http://www.mantrapskies.com/image-archive/NGC/NGC5485-NGC5484-NGC5473-NGC5486/NGC5485L4X10RGB2X10CROP125.JPG
http://www.mantrapskies.com/image-archive/NGC/NGC5485-NGC5484-NGC5473-NGC5486/NGC5485L4X10RGB2X10ID.JPG

Related Designations for NGC5485

NGC5514

NGC 5514 is a colliding pair of galaxies in Boötes about 350 million light-years away. NED classes NED01 as Sa and NED02 as Sb. The NGC project only classifies the combination which it sees as Sab. I classify them as a mess. NED shows a distance of 330 million light-years for the combined entry for NGC 5519 but 350 million light-years for the individual galaxies that make it up. I've seen this type of discrepancy before. If anyone knows why please let me know and I'll pass it on. NGC 5514 would seem to find any of several of Arp's categories for plumed galaxies or even that of a spiral galaxy with a high surface brightness companion on an arm. Lots of possibilities here but Arp didn't include it yet included several lesser examples for some reason. I didn't realize the western plume existed when I planned for this image. It wasn't until I went to process it a year later than I realized it was there. I needed a lot more exposure time to pick it up very well. This will have to do for now. It was discovered by Heinrich d'Arrest on April 26, 1865.

NGC 5519/5570 is to the southeast. It too has a similar redshift putting it about the same distance as NGC 5514's components. Its distorted arm may indicate it too tangled with NGC 5514 in the distant past. It would fit Arp's category for a spiral with one heavy arm or maybe a one-armed spiral.

NGC 5519 is identified as NGC 5570 by NGC project saying "NGC 5570 is probably WH's first observation of NGC 5519. His description reads, "vF, forming an arch with 3 sts." NGC 5519 indeed forms an arch with two stars west and southwest, and a third is superposed on the galaxy. WH's observation puts N5570 21m 15s p, 0d 34' s of 31 Bootis. This is 6 minutes of time off the position of N5519. I think that the "21m" is a transcription error and should read "27m." In that case, the RA as well as the Dec and the description would match N5519. - Dr. Harold G. Corwin, Jr."

Both NED and NGC Project classify it as Sa though it sure looks like it has a bar to me.

I did it again. In the upper right of the image is a faint asteroid trail. Checking the minor planet center I find nothing down past magnitude 23 in this area on the night this was taken, March 28, 2011 at 2 a.m. UT. There are two much brighter ones out of the frame to the north. Apparently, I've missed finding another one by over a year.

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

Related Designations for NGC5514

NGC5523

NGC 5523 drew my attention because in POSS images the core looked well off center. While it is very slightly east of center this is only a very slight offset. Turns out the POSS exposures create an illusion it is further off center than it really is due to the inner bright disk's center being nearly a half minute west of the core. The core is nearly centered in the entire disk. Still, it turns out to be an interesting galaxy. One paper, https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.05968 , says that while it is an isolated galaxy it has likely had many non-destructive mergers. According to the authors, it is all alone because it has merged with all its neighbors. I measure its size at about 77,000 light-years. It was discovered by William Herschel on May 19, 1784. It is in the second Herschel 400 observing program. Unfortunately, as I've mentioned before my notes from that were lost in my move to Minnesota.

One galaxy south and a bit west of NGC 5523, LEDA 1729736, appears double with a bright region southwest of the northeastern part. Looking at the SLOAN image it is hard to tell if this is one or two galaxies. Neither shows a nucleus. For now, I'm going to say it is one very irregular galaxy. Nothing else in the frame attracted my attention.

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

Related Designations for NGC5523

NGC5529

NGC 5529/FGC 1735 is a massive flat galaxy with a warped disk in Bootes about 140 million light-years from us. At that distance, it is a bit over 250,000 light-years across, twice the size of our galaxy which is a big one. Thus it met two criteria I use for finding targets, a member of the FGC catalog and distorted. It should remind you of the Needle Galaxy NGC 4565 and NGC 128 though there are some major differences. NGC 4565 has a round central bulge while NGC 5529 has a box-like core with 4 "points" much like NGC 128 I ran October 1st of this year. Also like NGC 128, both arms are warped in the same direction while with NGC 4565 the arms are warped in opposite directions and only at the very ends. It does have the strong dust lane and coloring of NGC 4565 while NGC 128 had neither but did have the most obvious box or peanut core I know of while it is rather subtle in NGC 5529. The "points are rather hidden on the northern side unless you look for them. NED and the NGC project class it as an edge on Sc galaxy. One paper says it is exactly edge-on though to me it appears a few degrees away from that as the dust lane is a bit north of being centered and the northern "points" of the box are mostly hidden behind the closer structure of the galaxy while the southern points are seen against the black background sky. It was discovered by William Herschel on May 1, 1785. It is in the second H400 program.

A box structure is usually indicative of an interaction with other galaxies, usually from digesting a companion or two. NGC 5529 certainly has some dwarf companions but none appear large enough to warp a galaxy of the massive size of NGC 5529. So I'm going out on a limb and say the warping is due to galaxies it digested long ago creating the box-like core. In the annotated image I've noted the true companions by showing their catalog name as well as a redshift distance in the 140 to 150 million light-year range. The differences are due to orbital motions about the group rather than actual distance differences. Note three of the 4 companions are very small, IKPM 1, IKPM 2 and Kregal B with MCG +06-31-085a being larger but very diffuse and low density. There are other galaxies "near" NGC 5529 but they are much more distant and thus not true companions. I found several images of this galaxy claiming KUG 1413+364 was a companion. Sure appears likely but the redshift shows it to be more than twice as distant. Appearances can be very deceiving. Note "nearby" galaxies over a billion light-years away are larger in apparent size than some of its true companions. The star-like feature in MCG +06-31-085a is composed of two blue knots of stars in the galaxy that nearly overlap. My resolution is not sufficient to separate them. In any case, it's not due to a foreground star as it might appear.

There's a good paper on this galaxy at: http://www.aanda.org/index.php?option=com_article&access=standard&Itemid=129&url=/articles/aa/full/2007/41/aa7729-07/aa7729-07.right.html As published: http://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf/2007/41/aa7729-07.pdf .

To the east of NGC 5529 is a small galaxy group at a distance of about 890 million light-years. One member of the group is highly distorted, MAPS-NGP O_271_0108262. I've included it as an inset in the cropped and enlarged image. The apparently closest galaxy to the south has no redshift. While appearances can be deceiving I'm going to assume it is likely the cause of the tidally distorted arms on the galaxy to its north.

I often come across galaxies missed by NED. I happened across many in this image. One is right below NGC 5529. I've marked them in the annotated image with a question mark. In the upper left you'll find three question marks in a row. This is because the three galaxies to their left are all missed by NED. Though two, (the leftmost) appear to be one in my image the Sloan image shows them both quite clearly. Most interesting is the example to the southwest where I marked SDSS J141632.42+360550.5 which is a tiny faint galaxy almost lost in the glare of a far larger and bright galaxy to its south. The big one is not in NED for some reason. That's often the case, faint ones picked up, brighter are overlooked. Why I don't know. I made no search for these. I have only noted those I happened across while annotating the image. How many more there are in the image I can't say. NED picks these up using automated software. It seems there are still some bugs to be worked out in the detection algorithms.

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

Related Designations for NGC5529

NGC5533

NGC 5533 is a very large spiral galaxy in northwestern Boötes. Its large size is due to a very faint outer arm structure. I was only slightly successful in picking it up as this image was plagued with the same fog that hit me earlier in the evening with NGC 4689. This cost me most of the faint detail and hit the color frames significantly. Only 1 red frame was usable, the blue and green frames were awful but it was better to use both than only one. Somehow the system kept working through the fog so I didn't know the harm until too late to reshoot it.

I couldn't find much in the way of images of this galaxy. The Sloan image shows it as very red compared to what I got. Seligman has an image of unknown origin that show it much bluer than I do. Which is right I can't say due to the poor conditions when I took my image. I measure its physical size at about 187,000 light-years. Others say more like 200,000 light-years. One star cloud in its extended arms can be seen beyond a star to the southeast of the galaxy's core. I had to stretch the image more than normal to start to show the fainter objects and extent of the galaxy. This leaves more noise than I would prefer but considering the conditions it is acceptable.

The most distant galaxy I was able to bring out is listed by NED at 7 billion light-years. I see it as a point source. It also appears as a blue star in the Sloan image. So while I left it annotated as a galaxy I am quite sure it is really a quasar. It is in the worst part of my frame for fog. There's a 4.8 magnitude K1III or K0III star just off the frame to the east. It created a huge glare in the fog that spilled into the entire image but was worse in this area. No way I could see a galaxy at that distance under these conditions. I'd find it nearly impossible under good conditions. Due to the fog, I was unable to annotate many objects I would have under normal conditions.

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

Related Designations for NGC5533

NGC5534

NGC 5534/Markarian 1379 is a very strange galaxy in western Virgo, almost into Libra. That may explain why a Virgo galaxy is in an area where virtually no galactic studies are being conducted. I came up nearly blank on the field but for this galaxy and its satellite. Redshift puts it at 130 million light-years though a single estimate based on a Type II supernova that was seen in 2001 puts it at about one hundred million light-years away. In any case, it lies beyond the Virgo Cluster. NED classifies it as (R')SAB(s)ab pec with HII while Seligman says (R)SAB(s)ab? pec and lists it as being a starburst galaxy. NGC project says simply Sbab, I think they mean SBab. It was discovered April 29, 1881 by Wilhelm Temple. It was found a couple weeks later on May 17, 1881 by Édouard Stephan.

On the east side is a mess of blue objects seen against the red color of the galaxy. That is listed by NED as MRK 1379a and is described as "Satellite galaxy projected on MRK 1379." I think that's ambiguous as to it being in front or behind the galaxy. Redshift is nearly identical giving no help in the matter. Has it been distorted by the encounter? Is it responsible for NGC 5534 being a starburst galaxy? I couldn't find any definite answer so will say maybe to both.

The field contains two other strange galaxies or interacting galaxies. I can't tell from my image. I've annotated both with their catalog names. The one to the east is made up of several discrete parts as if it may be more than one very distant galaxy likely interacting or it may be simply a rather nearby irregular galaxy, possibly related to NGC 5534. Without any information on it I can't say though it is listed in the Galex catalog of ultraviolet sources so is full of very massive, hot stars. Irregular galaxies going through rapid star formation, as well as interacting galaxies, could both cause this.

To the west (right) is a very fuzzy galaxy likely with a plume or plumes. It has no obvious pieces, just a fuzzy patch. It didn't make the UV catalog but is somewhat blue in color. Again, thanks to nearly no information on this field I have no idea what is going on here either.

There were about 10 asteroids in the field that normally would have been seen but due to the bad conditions, only 4 are visible even on the raw FITS files. The brightest is at least 1.5 magnitudes fainter than it should be with lots of gaps due to total cloud cover. It is: "(17720) Manuboccuni = 1997 XH10 -- Emanuele Boccuni (b. 1969) is a composer of new age music, many of his compositions referring to the sky. He composed The night and the stars for the discoverer. (Tombelli, M. of Cima Ekar's Asiago Astrophysical Observatory)." This is in Italy if you were wondering.

Conditions for this image were horrible. I'd not planned on imaging this night due to heavy clouds but they suddenly opened enough the software decided to suddenly open the roof and start taking data on this field. Conditions were really too poor as clouds constantly blocked the field while high clouds put a strong fog across the image. Look at the asteroid trail of Manuborccuni to see how broken it is. The other trails should be about as long yet are shorter as being too faint to record much of the time. It immediately went back on the reshoot list but bad weather prevented that. It is low so my time to catch it passed and I had to go with what data I had. Stars are very wonky due to bad seeing as well as the sudden opening lot allowing time for tube currents to subside. I amazed myself that I somehow pulled a usable image from the mess. Didn't help that this field is on the southern edge of the Geostationary satellite belt so I had a mess of them to remove. Fortunately, many came through when cloudy so didn't do as much harm as usual in this part of the sky. Still, when working with crumby data I don't need them as an added complication. Most were in the color frames where I only had two usable for each color adding to the work of removing them.

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

Related Designations for NGC5534