NGC5673

As you should know by now I'm fascinated by flat galaxies, those with little to no central bulge. The Flat Galaxy Catalog contains the strictest rules for what it considers as flat. Less strict is the 2-micron survey's flat galaxy catalog. I search both for good targets. When the 2MFGC came up with 2 in the same field and they were big and bright NGC and IC galaxies I had to put that field on my to-do list. When I took the field I centered on the bigger and brighter of the two assuming it was the NGC galaxy and gave that name to the field. The Sky working with CCDSoft names the subs with the central object. I was more than a little surprised when it came up with that being the IC galaxy. I was sure it had screwed up. Turns out it did and it didn't. I'll save the complications for later. But it is true the IC galaxy is the bigger and brighter of the two so I'll start there since it is front and center.

IC 1029 is a surprisingly big and bright galaxy in the IC catalog and a rather classic rather edge-on spiral classified SAb: by NED and Sb?? by the Seligman. It was "discovered" by Guillaume Bigourdan on June 14, 1887 and lies some 110 million light-years distant by redshift and 140 million light-years away by other measurements. While in the 2MFGC I see some central bulge to it, more than I expected for a galaxy in this catalog. Apparently, its length was great enough to overcome the bulge as far as the catalog's criteria require. It is 95,000 to 120,000 light-years across depending on which of several distances you assume is correct. I'm favoring the larger distance and size for reasons I'll get to shortly.

While sources give credit for finding to Bigourdan it really was first seen by William Herschel. But due to an error by John Herschel that finding was ascribed by Dreyer to the wrong galaxy. That brings us to NGC 5673 that is officially discovered by William Herschel on May 15, 1787 but was never seen by Herschel who was really looking at IC 1029. Oddly John Herschel must have seen both but ascribed this one to his dad in error. He must have seen the IC galaxy long before Bigourdan yet never gets the credit for its discovery some reason I can't find other than he never seems to mention it but in passing being more concerned with "correcting" his dad's error that wasn't an error. For more on this mix-up see the write up for NGC 5673 in the NGC Project. Edit: Since I wrote this the NGC project went down. It is now partly up and keeps saying it will return but nothing more has happened for over a year. Once up again, if it happens, then you can check it out. For now see Steve Gottlieb's pages on the NGC and IC at: http://www.astronomy-mall.com/Adventures.In.Deep.Space/steve.ngc.htm

Due to this mix up its difficult to put a discoverer on these two. I'm going to say IC 1029 was really first seen by Herschel. Since the date of his entry some say is IC 1029 but he likely couldn't see is May 15, 1787. IC 1029 was likely discovered by Guillaume, Bigourdan on June 14, 1887. Most sources, however, stick with the reverse that couldn't have happened.

NGC 5673 is a much lower surface brightness spiral and bluer than its companion. Its core appears flatter to me. NED and Seligman classify it as SBc? and SBc respectively while the NGC project says Sc (no bar). I can't say I see one but they are so hard to detect visually in near edge on galaxies I'm not going to take sides here. Its distance is 100 million light-years by redshift and 130 million by other means. Note the difference between the two measurements for these to galaxies is similar. Makes me think they are related having the same motion through space in our direction reducing their true distance. Hence I'm going with the non-redshift distances here as being more likely correct. I measure its size as 72,000 to 93,000 light-years across.

There turned out to be a third 2MFGC galaxy in the image about 5 times more distant to the lower right in my image. I can't say it appears all that flat to my eye but my resolution isn't all that great either.

There are quite a few galaxies at about 950 million light-years scattered all over the field. More are on the right side than left. Though the biggest is LEDA 2352876 in the lower left. Beyond it is a very low surface brightness blue galaxy without any redshift data and only an SDSS position that I could find. It looks rather interesting but would need a lot of time to bring out its details due to its very low surface brightness. Even the core appears blue, just not nearly as blue as the rest of the galaxy. Wish I knew something about its distance.

Arp made a big deal out of fields around disturbed active looking galaxies that had quasars around them. He even developed a theory that quasars were nearby objects ejected from such galaxies and their redshift increased with their age. Really off the wall stuff that required new physics to support it. Right on the edge of crackpot but never going over the brink. But here is a field with two rather ordinary galaxies with lots of quasars around them. Several more are just off the top of my image. I wonder how he'd have dealt with this field.

This image hit severely by an aurora. The aurora was dying down when I took a prior image but then came back to life in the middle of this one. Not as strong but strong enough to greatly hinder my signal to noise ratio. This again forced me to over-process the background to remove all the color noise the aurora added to the image. Due to how strong it was in red and green I'm not all that sure of my color balance. I had to do a lot of correcting I normally avoid. Though all color correction as applied globally I'm hoping it is fairly accurate as I don't think the aurora would be all that different across my very small field of view.

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

Related Designations for NGC5673

NGC5674

Back in 2010, I imaged Arp 274 though didn't get it processed until May of 2011. I centered on Arp 274 not realizing a companion to these was just outside the field of view and actually more interesting. This image rectifies that omission by framing the field as I should have back in 2011. It also corrects a few mistakes I made in the original post and its annotated image.

Arp 274 is a galaxy triplet though Arp seems most interested in the two on the left saying the little galaxy has perturbed the eastern arm of the big galaxy. The middle galaxy's eastern arm does have a bulge that points to the little galaxy but from what we now know of galaxy interactions that isn't the type of distortion we'd expect from an interaction. Redshift data now indicates the middle galaxy is likely 40 to 50 million light-years beyond the other two. While NED had no redshift on the little galaxy on the east several papers do show a measured redshift that's almost identical to the western galaxy and nearly 1000 kps different from the center one showing they are unlikely true companions. The middle galaxy apparently is just a background galaxy photobombing the other two. Hence a nice field but otherwise uninteresting. The HST has more on this at: http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/ann0904a/ .

For this image, NGC 5674 was my primary target. It is really strange. The inner core region looks much like the many "Saturn-like" galaxies I've imaged but the southern ansa has an arm coming off it that bends up to the north and west to either join or possibly become a huge ring that nearly encircles the Saturn-like core. Much like NGC 1954 I posted last just, it seems made up of parts taken from two very different galaxies.

This field is located in northwestern Virgo. The two probably related galaxies in Arp 274 and NGC 5674 are about 360 million light-years distant. This means NGC 5674 is a very large galaxy with a diameter of about 140,000 light-years including the plume on the northeastern side. The western spiral of Arp 274 is a bit over 100,000 light-years across assuming the north pointing blob between the two large galaxies is part of the western one. The central one is about 110,000 light-years across assuming it is 400 million light-years distant. It is obviously a more massive galaxy than the western one but its arms are less pulled out giving it a slightly smaller angular length even though its bulk makes it seem much larger than it measures. The dinky third member is less than 30,000 light-years across.

NGC 5674 was discovered by William Herschel on May 12, 1793 but is not on either Herschel 400 list. NGC 5679 was also found by William Herschel but not the same night. It was discovered months earlier on February 12, 1793. It is certain he found the center galaxy but I can't say if he saw the western galaxy or not. It might have been too faint. Like NGC 5674 it isn't on either Herschel 400 list.

Further to the southeast is the very low surface brightness galaxy UGC 9385. At only 85 million light-years it is much closer but also much fainter. It is about 60,000 light-years across its two very widely spread diffuse arms. Even combining its image using data from both nights 4 years apart, it is too faint to get a good measurement on it. While NED classifies it as an irregular galaxy it seems to have a barred spiral structure to my eye. The arms seem spread unequally with the northern one further from the core than the southern and less well defined as well.

The image contains several candidate quasars (CQ) in the annotated image. NED also listed several dozen ELG's (Emission Line Galaxies). While most show in my image they are very faint. They are likely very active galaxies with super bright cores to be seen at the distances they are. I have to wonder if some are almost quasar bright. I've only marked two on the image one with a look back distance of 7.21 billion light-years and another even further at 8.50 billion light-years and a z of 1.19. All are starlike showing no hint of "fuzz" in my image. The latter having a magnitude of 22.7 per NED so these are very faint objects. I wish I knew more about what they might be.

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

Related Designations for NGC5674

NGC5676

NGC 5676 is a two-armed barred? spiral whose arms knotty and ill-defined after a point that it is almost a flocculent galaxy. NED classifies it as SA(rs)bc with HII emission. NGC project says Sc while Seligman says Sbc. Several papers say it has a short low contrast bar which I thought I saw. Or did I? Several HII regions came out in my rather low-resolution image thanks to below average seeing. The brightest is just right of what NED lists as a separate galaxy and is listed as such in several catalogs but which to me is just one of many knots in the galaxy's arms. I've pointed to it because it almost points to the largest HII region seen in my image in the galaxy. Redshift puts it 100 million light-years distant while non-redshift measurements say it is a bit further at 110 million. Very good agreement. Assuming the round 100 million light-year distance I measure its diameter at at least 120,000 light-years. A rather large spiral maybe on par with M31.

The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on May 15, 1787. It is in the original Herschel 400 observing program. My notes from that on May 17, 1985 at 120x using my 10" f/5 under fair conditions due to high humidity and thus low transparency reads: "Small oval galaxy. The starlike nucleus is seen with averted vision. Seems 3'x2' rather than the 3'x1' as described. Grows larger and rounder with averted vision." My image measures the galaxy as 4.0'x 1.92'.

The annotated image points to everything NED had a redshift value for. Those with only coordinates for a catalog name are just listed as G for Galaxy UvES for Ultraviolet Excess Source (usually a candidate quasar) or GC for a galaxy cluster. Only one cluster also had a redshift distance for its bright cluster galaxy. In that case, both were photographic redshifts and disagreed. So both are listed with the cluster's value first. Another object is a candidate BLAGN (Broad Line Active Galactic Nucleus). These usually are quasars but in this case, the host galaxy is clearly evident by its orange color. Broad lines mean high speed that blurs the lines so they are likely coming from near the massive black hole at its core.

Several galaxies I'd have liked some info on had little in NED. One is the very faint low surface brightness fuzz patch southeast of NGC 5676. I suspect it is a very faint nearby dwarf but with no information who knows? Further east and south of MCG +08-27-001 is what looks to be either an irregular blue galaxy or a disrupted galaxy.

This night fits my weather lately when I can get either good seeing or good transparency but not both. This had good transparency but that meant below average seeing. So it did go deep but fine details in the galaxy, like a lot of HII regions, were lost to the poor seeing. Seeing was a bit below 3" rather than my average (before this stint of lousy conditions) of 2.25" to 2.5".

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=8x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5676

NGC5689

This field of 5 NGC galaxies is located in northern Bootes. 4 are part of the NGC 5689 group at about 110 million light years. The fifth is about half the distance. The four at about the same distance are; NGC 5682 discovered by George Stoney on April 13, 1850, NGC 5689 for which the group is sometimes named was discovered by William Herschel on May 12, 1787, NGC 5693 also discovered by George Stoney on April 13, 1850 and NGC 5700 discovered by Lawrence Parsons. While his employees discovered many of the galaxies some attribute to him this one he likely really did discover. The 5th member NGC 5683 that's much closer was also found by George Stoney on April 13, 1850. George Stoney was one of Lawrence Parsons' astronomers.

NGC 5689 is in the original H400 program. My notes from that read: May 17, 1985, night fair but humidity limiting brightness some, using my 10" f/5 at up to 120x; Small, thin galaxy with fainter outer halo. At first glance, it seems nearly round then with averted vision you see the faint outer raches that define it as an edge on galaxy. Averted vision a must for this one to see its true nature." Humidity may have had a lot to do with the need for averted vision that night. At the time I didn't appreciate how much it can dim an object.

NGC 5689 is about 130,000 light-years across so a bit larger than our galaxy but much redder indicating star formation is very low in this galaxy. It also seems to have a much larger core and thus its supermassive black hole may be quite a bit larger than ours. Since the galaxy still contains quite a bit of dust and gas could a large black hole be the cause of the lack of new star formation? I've seen this said about other galaxies but this wasn't one of those.

Of the four found at Birr Castle (still occupied today by a direct descendant of Lawrence Parsons, less the 72" telescope) NGC 5682 is about 53,000 light-years in size. While note mentioned I see two plumes, one from each end. The southeastern one going southwest and larger than the faint one to the northeast. It appears it interacted and maybe ate something in the not too distant past. I found nothing in the literature about this, however. NGC 5683, the smallest in angular size but nearest so easily the smallest of the 5 is about 8,000 light-years across. It seems rather well-formed for such a small galaxy. Is it loaded with dark matter? NGC 5693 is about 53,000 with a long pulled out arm that could have fit into Arp's category for galaxies with one heavy arm. That is the only easily visible arm of the galaxy. Is it the one that created the plumes of NGC 5682? Again I found nothing on this possibility. Lastly is small NGC 5700. I get a size of 33,000 light-years for it. Yet another member of the group is the very faint PGC 052263. I get a size of about 40,000 light-years but it is of such low surface brightness it may be somewhat larger.

Of late, most objects I'd consider quasars, NED has listed a candidate quasars (CQ in my annotated images) but this field has only full-blown quasars, none are listed as being a candidate. One is even listed under an old designation for them, Blue Stellar Object beside as a quasar. That one really is strongly blue in my image. No asteroids and otherwise the field is rather normal.

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

Related Designations for NGC5689

NGC5698

NGC 5698 is an SBb spiral in Bootes one degree east of Seginus (Gamma) Bootes. It has a rather strange ice cream cone shape with a faint drawn out arm or plume on the eastern side. Usually, such distortion is due to an interaction with another nearby galaxy. NGC 5732 is the nearest candidate with a similar redshift but is perfectly normal looking so probably isn't the culprit. I checked a few others in the area but they were either the wrong distance and/or undisturbed. It could be due to a merger but I found no papers discussing anything to do with its distorted shape or suggesting it has interacted with anything. So how it ended up looking like it does is still a mystery to me. If anyone knows more please let me know. Ignoring the plumes I get a size of 85,000 light-years. Including them, I get 135,000 light-years for a size assuming it is 180 million light-years from us as NED's redshift using the 5-year WMAP data shows. It was discovered by William Herschel on May 16, 1787 but didn't make either H400 observing program.

The other interesting object in my image is LEDA 097532 a pair of obviously interacting galaxies with a plume appearing to connect the two though it could be in front of or behind the other galaxy. Again, I found nothing on their interaction. They are about 480 to 490 million light-years distant. I get a size for the northern galaxy of 43,000 light years and a bit over 100,000 light-years for the southern galaxy thanks to its plumes. The projected distance between their cores is 60,000 light-years. Projected distance assumes they are equally distant from us. Since this is unlikely their true separation distance is likely larger, how much larger is the question?

While transparency was finally excellent for this image allowing me to easily go beyond 22nd magnitude and pick up galaxies NED shows at over 5 billion light-years, seeing would suddenly distort things severely. This resulted in some stars being elongated in various directions and other, often only a short angular distance away, looking normal. I can't recall ever having such distortion before. Very odd.

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

Related Designations for NGC5698

NGC5701

NGC 5701 is a quasi-ringed barred spiral about 80 million light-years distant in Virgo. The arms are very faint. They are quite odd in that the inner half of each arm that forms the ring is red while the center to outer half is blue. I've never seen arms so segregated as to star color (temperature) before. Hot blue stars to the outside of western arm and middle of eastern and in clusters while the red streams are smooth and composed of old, cool, red stars. It was discovered by William Herschel on April 29, 1786. It isn't in either H400 program.

The field around it has several very distant galaxies with redshift data from the WIG catalog (WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey). The one just northeast of NGC 5701 near a bright somewhat orange star at 5.6 billion light-years is listed at magnitude 22.8 if you are wondering how faint this image goes. Slightly brighter at magnitude 22.6 is the most distant galaxy I've picked up at 7.0 (6.962 to be exact beyond reason) billion light-years. To the southeast of NGC 5701 is another that also rounds to 7.0 (6.957) which is a bit brighter. All are listed as emission line galaxies.

I'm reporting this as I researched it. I was really excited about 7 billion light-year galaxies in my image. That's the range of quasars. Turns out I excite easily as no sooner was that sinking in than continuing down the list of WIG galaxies I came upon WIG S15J143912038+05164280 with a z=1.059240. That blew me away. At magnitude 23.4 I didn't expect it to make it through the JPG process but there it was! That, by NED's 5-year WMAP calculations, puts it 8.023 billion light years distant! Yikes. Since this WIG survey is very limited in scope it appears likely that many of the very faint "stars" in my images are unrecognized very distant galaxies. This is the first field covered by WIG I've imaged. There may be more in the more than a year's worth of unprocessed images. I just don't know. This one too is an emission line galaxy meaning it likely has an AGN at its core making it brighter than typical for a galaxy.

It turned out there were many dozen galaxies in the image at or beyond 6 billion light-years that were listed only in the WIG survey. As with the above galaxies, all were very dim and barely able to survive the JPG compression process. So after noting many WIG galaxies within about 5 minutes of NGC 5701 I got more choosy and only picked up those bright enough to certainly survive the JPG compression though you will likely have to enlarge the image to see some of them. Dozens are in the raw FITS file that just won't survive and were therefore not marked.

There are 3 quasars and one asteroid in the image. The asteroid is (7530) Mizusawa at an estimated magnitude of 16.5. The naming citation is rather long.

"(7530) Mizusawa = 1994 GO1
Named in commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of the International Latitude Observatory of Mizusawa, established by the Japanese government according to a resolution adopted by the International Association of Geodesy in 1899 as one of the six stations of the International Latitude Service, at a latitude of +39°08'. In 1988 the Observatory was transferred to the Division of Earth Rotation of the National Astronomical Observatory. The observations have never been interrupted, even during the two World Wars. Mizusawa is located about 500 km north of Tokyo, and its citizens show a strong interest in the observatory's astronomical and geophysical research. Name proposed by the discoverers following a suggestion by K. Hurukawa, who was an astronomer there during 1960-1969. Citation prepared by K. Yokoyama."

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

Related Designations for NGC5701

NGC5714

I've had FGC 1785 on my to-do list for some time but at a low priority as it has only faint detail. Then I realized the field contained an unnamed (as far as I can find) galaxy group at about a half billion light-years that also contained a flat galaxy of even less detail. Though 4 or 5 of the galaxies in the group are from the NGC catalog, they aren't "winners" but red elliptical-like galaxies. Well 4 are, the fifth is very odd and discussed below. Two of the 4 may be interacting. The field lies in northern Bootes.

FGC 1785 is also NGC 5714 which was discovered by William Herschel on May 12, 1787 but isn't in either Herschel 400 observing list from the Astronomical League nor is it to be found in my visual observations logs. At only 130 million light-years it is much closer than the other galaxies in my image. Still, it is quite large with a diameter of about 125,000 light-years. The other 4 NGC galaxies all lie a half billion light-years distant along with many more much smaller galaxies.

NGC 5717 was discovered by John Herschel on April 26, 1830. NED doesn't attempt to classify it but the NGC Project and others say it is a spiral. It is a huge galaxy with a diameter of over 150,000 light-years but very red indicating No significant star formation is going on in it.

NGC 5721 was discovered by R. J. Mitchell an assistant to the Earl of Rosse who likely discovered many galaxies credited to the Earl. He found it on April 16, 1855. It is the smallest of the NGC galaxies in the group with a diameter of only 42,000 light-years. NED doesn't classify it though the NGC Project says it is a compact galaxy. These are small but very dense galaxies, perfect for disturbing larger but less dense neighbors.

NGC 5722 is another discovery of John Herschel and was made the same night of April 26, 1830 as 5717. It appears to have large plumes about it. These may be a result of interaction with NGC 5721 but I find nothing in the literature to support this. Like the others, NED doesn't classify it though the NGC Project says E-S0 which certainly fits both its red color and visual appearance. I might add pec for the plumes. It's bright star ball/disk is about 75,000 light-years across. Adding in the plumes it is much larger. I find it hard to decide where these end. I'd conservatively say it is at least 160,000 light-years in diameter and argue it is at least 10,000 light-years larger than that.

NGC 5723 was discovered by R. J. Mitchell the same night as 5721. Again NED doesn't classify it but the NGC Project says E-S0. I'd lean toward S0. Its major axis is about 80,000 light-years long.

This brings me to NGC 5724 which is quite a puzzle. NED says it is a star but then lists several catalogs showing it a galaxy. So I checked the NGC Project which says it is a compact galaxy. I looked at the PSF in my image which seems to show it likely a star though it is showing a larger FWHM than other stars in the area. The difference is small enough I'd normally ignore it. Next, I checked SIMBAD who says it is a galaxy with a diameter of 8" of arc. That is hardly a star. Then I checked the Sloan image that seems to show a halo about it but a core that is very star-like. The color has a green cast which is very odd for a galaxy but I've seen it with some stars in the survey. Still, that halo would argue for it being a galaxy. With no redshift, it is hard to decide. Dr. Corwin of the NGC Project considers it the faintest identified NGC galaxy. To add to the confusion Seligman says: "Although NGC 5724 is a star, (per NED) many references mistakenly assign it the characteristics of NGC 5424..." This actually makes a bit of sense as there may be both a star and galaxy here. One with the NGC number and the other a LEDA number. This conundrum was discovered by R. J. Mitchel on that fateful April 16th night. For now, I'll say galaxy rather than star and assume the PSF I'm seeing is severely damaged by the very bright starlike core around the faint halo seen in the Sloan image. It wouldn't take much to change my mind, however. Seligman sides with the star hypothesis. He usually goes with the NGC project's Dr. Corwin. Even an amateur level spectroscope should decide this issue. Anyone out there have one?

The annotated image shows many small galaxies also at a half billion light-years scattered rather evenly across the entire field plus the usual assortment of background galaxies. Two of the group members on the left side of my image are interesting. FGC 1790 is another entry from the flat galaxy catalog that's about 110,000 across so a rather large spiral. CG 0497 is an apparent spiral that could have made Arp's list of peculiar galaxies under his category for spirals with one heavy arm. In fact, the only detail I can see in the disk is that heavy arm seen against an otherwise featureless disk of stars. It likely has more detail but the poor seeing this night is hiding it from me. It is about 70,000 light-years across, a respectably sized spiral.

There's an interesting trio of galaxies lies below NGC 5717. One is ASK 402612.0, a wide-open 2 arm, very blue spiral. In a field of mostly red galaxies, it adds a splash of a different color. there are two rather bright red elliptical-like galaxies to its right and fainter ones above and below it. While it is likely the two faint ones are in the background I can't be so sure about the two red ones. Without redshift that will remain an unknown, I suppose. Thanks to its drawn-out arms the blue spiral is some 65,000 light-years tip to tip.

I have other questions that can't be answered as well. Such as is the little galaxy above NGC 5714 a satellite, or a member of the group at a half billion light-years or a totally unrelated background galaxy? Seems the more I look into an image the more questions I have.

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

Related Designations for NGC5714

NGC5719

NGC 5713 and NGC 5719 are a pair of possible interacting galaxies. Most consider them an interacting pair. The pair are located in eastern Virgo at a distance of maybe about 80 million light-years. I found large disagreements here as shown on the annotated image. I'm rather arbitrarily picking the 80 million light-year distance.

NGC 5713 is a highly disturbed SAB(rs)bc pec spiral. It would have fit Arp's one spiral arm category. Including plumes, it is some 70,000 light-years in diameter. It was discovered by William Herschel on April 11, 1787. It isn't in either of the Herschel observing programs.

NGC 5719 is a rather edge on SAB(s)ab pec spiral containing a narrow line AGN at its core indicating its black hole is actively feeding. The slanted heavy dust lane is said by some to indicate the disk is warped. The fainter dust lanes, however, appear rather normal without any slant. One paper that has studied this galaxy finds that about 20% of its stars are orbiting in retrograde compared to the other 80%. The paper says this is likely due to acquiring mostly molecular hydrogen likely torn from both galaxies by their interaction which then has turned into stars. I assume the slanted dust lane has a similar origin? http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007A%26A...463..883V This galaxy was also discovered by William Herschel on April 11, 1787 the same time he found 5713. It is some 90,000 light-years across including its faint outer regions. It too isn't in either of the Herschel observing programs.

There's a third galaxy that apparently is related to these two on the right edge of my frame which I've labeled as LEDA 135857 (PGC 135857 in some catalogs). Oddly NED also shows it as GAMA 064758. But instead of it being about the same redshift as the NGC galaxies that entry says it is some 3.59 billion light-years distant and calls it a Narrow Emission Line Galaxy which isn't noted for the LEDA entry. If correct it would be some 700,000 light-years across. I think it safe to discard this identification as being a discovery by that all too often cited oriental astronomer Sum Ting Wong. Still, I noted it on the annotated image as well as the likely correct LEDA entry. The same paper mentioned above says it at the end of a large molecular hydrogen cloud created by the interaction of these two galaxies and its stars likely formed from it. If so it is a brand new galaxy some 25,000 to 30,000 light-years across.

Assuming the two NGC galaxies are at the same distance their projected separation is only about 266,000 light-years. Certainly, close enough they are still feeling each other's gravity well. Are they destined to eventually merge? I didn't find anything either way on this.

The annotated image contains 12 quasars plus one quasar candidate (UvES). Arp seemed to think quasars were associated with active or peculiar galaxies. I wonder if he knew of this field? NED listed over 200 objects in the field with redshift information. Many were ELG (Emission Line Galaxies) that were very faint. I point out the brighter ones and a couple of the very faint ones but after that ignored them as it would have filled the image with their catalog entries. It didn't help that this was taken on the same night as my last post so a lot of clouds passing by greatly reduced the depth of this image. My limiting magnitude is over one magnitude less than normal and nearly 2 less than on a really great night. Seeing, however, was reasonable so I didn't put it on the re-do list.

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

Related Designations for NGC5719

NGC5746

NGC 5746 is a nearly edge-on SAB(rs)b? sp spiral in eastern Virgo. It is about 89 million light-years away by redshift. Non-redshift measurements average out to about 86 to 95 million light-years, a rather good agreement. It was first recorded by William Herschel on February 24, 1786. It is in the original H400 program. My log entry from May 17, 1985 with my 10" f/5 on a fairly good night hit by humidity using up to 120x reads: "Beautiful edge-on galaxy. Gradually brighter toward the nucleus which seems off center. A winner. In the same field with NGF 5740." NGC 5740 was also seen by William Herschel that night but it isn't in my image (would have fit) nor is it in either of the H400 projects.

Chandra saw a 120,000 wide halo of rather featureless light around the core region of the galaxy. Even with a 60,000 light-year radius, it doesn't extend across the entire galaxy. Based on the Chandra image I get a distance to the galaxy of 95,000 light-years and a size of a bit over 200,000 light-years. This is one huge galaxy. The Chandra image is at http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2006/n5746/ Chandra puts it at about 100,000 light-years. I suppose that could fit the 95,000 light-years I get from their broad estimates.

This was one of my very earliest images and leaves a lot to be desired. 4th magnitude 109 Virginis just out of the field sent in a huge blue halo I didn't have the ability to deal with. Sometime I hope to take it with NGC 5740 but don't hold your breath.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x10' RGB=1x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5746

NGC5750

NGC 5750 is a ringed spiral galaxy with plumes in northwestern Virgo. Its distance depends on who you believe. NED's redshift data says about 88 million light-years. Others say up to 110,000 using non-redshift measurements. I'm going to round it to 100 million for measuring its size. Not counting the plumes I get a size of about 90,000 light-years which grows to 130,000 including the plumes, especially the one to the northeast. The galaxy is a barred spiral with arms coming off the bar that overlaps forming the ring-like structure. It also has some dust lanes that just aren't where you'd expect them to be. NED classifies it as a Narrow Line AGN while some others say Seyfert 2. In any case, it appears to have a rather actively feeding black hole at its core. The plumes and odd dust would argue this is due to a recent interaction or merger with another galaxy. Was LEDA 1150429 on the far right of my image the culprit? Its redshift is similar indicating it is likely part of the same group as NGC 5750. I found no classification for it. It does appear it could be rather disturbed and is quite blue indicating lots of current star formation is going on.

The annotated image has many Emission Line Galaxies (ELG) and some Narrow Emission Line Galaxies (NELG). The emission lines are narrow not the galaxy. Transparency was better than what passes for normal of late so I was able to pick up galaxies down past 22nd magnitude. This means some rather obscure catalogs had to be used to identify these without resorting to just coordinate names that the SDSS and other surveys use. Others had only coordinate names and are just labeled with a G for galaxy or Q for quasar. Some quasars have a redshift of over 2.5 meaning their light has been stretched 3.5+ times so that even much of their ultraviolet light is now infrared from our vantage point leaving very little in the visible spectrum. Only those with deep UV emissions can be bright enough when stretched into visible light for me to pick up.

This was taken as dawn approached. I tried two additional, beyond my normal 4, luminance frames in a brightening sky. While they were rather noisy they did help a bit to bring out the faint plume of NGC 5750 so I left them in. They were taken after the last of the color data. This resulted in the luminance trail of the two asteroids in the image to be split into two parts with the red and green images taken before the dawn luminance frames.

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

Related Designations for NGC5750