NGC4236

NGC 4236 is a galaxy in the M81 group. Spitzer/Hubble has measured the distance at 11.5 million lightyears based on the brightness of several 19th magnitude blue stars in the galaxy. They show in my shot but I can't easily point them out. This is a really faint galaxy. Its apparent size is about the same as M81 but it is far fainter. M81 can be seen in binoculars. NGC 4236 is a difficult object in any size telescope showing only as a faint smudge and then only the core region is seen. As you see in the photo it is very blue. That means there's a heck of a lot of star formation going on in it or has gone on in the recent past. Yet even these bright stars can't make it very bright. One theory is it is heavily obscured by dust in our own galaxy. Very long exposures with wide field systems do show a huge dust cloud in our galaxy in this direction. If I ever get wide field capability I'd like to try and photograph it. Still, it is very thin and doesn't seem to redden anything behind it like a cloud thick enough to obscure much would. So its faintness is still a bit of a puzzle.

(Edit: it was discovered on April 6, 1793. I expected it to be in the original H400 program but somehow it didn't make the cut. It is in the second program but unfortunately, my notes from that were lost in the move to Minnesota from Nebraska in 2005.)

It has one companion galaxy Holmberg 357b. That is the brightest small galaxy in the shot. It is to the left of NGC 4236 toward the top, right of a rather bright star. It's the biggest and brightest galaxy in the shot besides 4236 itself. Sort of a very small Magellanic Cloud.

A large number of background "stars" in this image are really galaxies. If seeing had been better it would be easier to separate them but when you see a fuzzy star compared to a fainter one that isn't as fuzzy, the former is a galaxy. It's quite possible there are more galaxies in this shot that stars. Another reason I don't buy the "heavily obscured" explanation for why this galaxy is so faint.

Edit: This is a 2008 image before I researched the field so there's no data on the background galaxies nor was I annotating the images back then. While I did a minor reprocess of the TIF image from 2008 this one could use either a reshoot on a better night or a full reprocessing from the original data. My comments say, "Clouds rolled in about the time the moon was getting out of the way. Unfortunately, seeing wasn't very good as the air temp was very warm by day and cooling rapidly by night. That ruins my ability to capture a really clear image. Being very high in declination my window to photograph this one is limited so I used two nights, neither were any good. But we'll go with what I was able to get.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=8x10' RGB=4x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC4236

NGC4242

NGC 4242 is a very low surface brightness spiral galaxy in Canes Venatici about 1.75 degrees south of much better known M106. It may, in fact, be related to M106 as its distance is 33 million light-years based on cosmological redshift and 22 million light-years by an average of various non-redshift measurements that are likely more accurate. This is about the same as the 23.5 million light-year distance often cited for M106. Assuming it is a companion they are a minimum of only about 700,000 light-years apart much closer than we are to M32 (for now that is). In its center where I'd expect the core to be there is a starlike object. It's PSF is similar to a star indicating whatever it is unresolved at my seeing. Is it the core or is it a star in our galaxy that happens to be perfectly aligned?

Fortunately, the HST has taken an image of the core and it seems to be just a field star. It is classified as SAB(s)dm. It has little, if any, spiral structure. What passes for arms seem more radial than spiral and are mostly just star clouds and star clusters. While it is very blue little dust is seen so this may be its last gasp at star formation though radio observations show a HI disk that's 3 minutes across while the galaxy is 5 minutes on its major axis. That makes its visual size only about 33,000 light-years, so it isn't a large galaxy.

It was discovered April 10, 1788 by William Herschel. Its low surface brightness makes it a visual challenge, maybe that's why it isn't in either of the two Herschel 400 observing programs. Still, its large angular size makes it a great imaging target that few seem to know about. Its low surface brightness would challenge those working from rather bright skies.

In the annotated image I did include three quasar candidates. NED's primary designation for these, however, is just a star. Only photographic redshifts are available for these and likely the cause of both their extreme distance estimates as well as possible quasar status. Watching these almost always turn into confirmed stars rather than quasars I tend not to include them in my annotations. Several known quasars with accurate spectroscopic redshifts are also noted in the image. Arp seemed to think these were nearby objects ejected from active galaxies. NGC 4242 isn't active in the way he seemed to think caused quasars so I wonder when he made of all them around this galaxy?

The annotated image shows quite a few galaxies at about 920 million light-years. While NED indicates the 4 south of NGC 4242 are the SDSSCGB 39935 cluster this leaves out the others scattered further out.

Seeing turned lousy during the collection of color data leading to some nasty color issues with halos of vivid red, green and blue around the brighter stars, especially those that are nearly white which are rather common in the image. I had a heck of a time dealing with these flares and halos. Seeing hit 6" at times compared to the less than 3" for the luminance data. I probably should have reshot the color but didn't realize this was a problem until I recently went to process it and it was lost in the sun's glare. I managed to process out all but a hint of the problem but it took way too much time. If it hadn't have been such an interesting galaxy I'd likely have reshot it next year.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=5x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC4242

NGC4244

NGC 4244, sometimes called the Silver Needle Galaxy, is a nearby edge-on spiral in Canes Venatici. It is classed as SA(s)cd: with HII emission. The blue stars in such HII regions drown out the pink color of the HII emission. I will need to add H alpha filtered data to pick that up by holding back the glare of the stars formed in these regions. The distance to this galaxy is usually put at about 15 million light-years putting it too far to be in the local group or M81 group. It is sometimes considered part of the M94 group. It is about 81,500 light-years across if the distance is assumed to be 15 million light-years. Redshift puts it further away at 23 million light-years. The redshift velocity is pretty inaccurate at close range so I'll go with the other determinations that say 15 million. That also fits with the resolution seen in the HST image. See below for more on that. It was discovered by William Herschel on March 17, 1787. It is in the second H400 program.

Looking through the literature I see a lot of disagreement about the bright object at its core. Some say it is the core, others it is a field star. Looking at most images, including mine it looks like a star. In fact, I was going to come down on the side of it being a star but then looked at the PSF (Point Spread Function) of it in my data. That shows it certainly is not a star. This is where the numerical data trumps what the eye sees. Compared to stars of similar brightness on the image, the PSF is very wrong for a star. But looking for more, just before posting this I checked the Hubble Legacy Archive. They had a great image of the core region of the galaxy. I did a quick process of part of the frame. At over 70 meg I had to severely crop it for bandwidth limits. Those with the right software can go into the site and see the full frame. It clearly shows the core to look very much like a miniature M104. Apparently, it is round in all images I've seen of the galaxy only due to our lack of resolution compared to the HST above the atmosphere. So that "star" is definitely the core of the galaxy. Now why the core is so obvious but the dust lanes so obscure I don't know.

Then looking further I found this paper using some of the same data I used for the mono image above but processed further. It calls the disk a "flattened nuclear central cluster". You can read all about it at http://www.gemini.edu/node/10989. No need for hip waders as it is a press release rather than a scientific paper.

My blue data was severely hit by clouds (I sound like a broken record over this of late). I suspect this has reddened the core region some with it showing slightly more orange than it really is. Though web images show quite a wide range of core color from very orange to all blue. I suspect I'm close but just a bit too orange. I just couldn't push the weak blue any further without stars going wonky on me. I refuse to process one part of an image differently than another in this respect so left it what I feel is likely a bit too orange though most of the stars do appear about right to me when calibrated against Sloan photometric data.

Also, seeing wasn't what I'd hoped for reducing my resolution. I think the star clusters should stand out more if I had better seeing. I might eventually get around to trying again under better conditions. Edit: Still hasn't happened.

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

Related Designations for NGC4244

NGC4273

I had both NGC 4270 and NGC 4273 on my to-do list. 4270 for its plumes and shell-like structure and 4273 for it sloshed appearance. Somehow I never realized they were in the same field. Turns out 6 other NGC galaxies, an IC galaxy and a bright rather nearby Abell Galaxy Cluster managed to fit in the frame as well as many quasar candidates. This turned out to be one interesting field. There's enough here for several posts. The field is about one degree northwest of far more famous M61 in Virgo. Most of the galaxies lie in what is called the W cloud rather than the Virgo Cluster itself. This cloud is about twice as distant as the Virgo cluster itself though many of its members are in the VCC (Virgo Cluster Catalog). It turns out only one NGC galaxy in this frame is actually in the Virgo Cluster. Another could be in either or neither. The rest are in the far less known W Cloud.

I'll start with NGC 4270 which is simply classified as S0. To me, it is a shell galaxy with a well defined sharp-edged shell on its eastern side and a diffuse one with a plume on the western side. Yet nothing I find mentions this. The closest I found was a 1994 paper on the morphology of E-S0 galaxies that says; "An S0 with a disky lens surrounded by a boxy and rather peculiar envelope." All I saw before taking this image on the POSS plates was a hint of the structure that looked more like plumes so that might have something to do with it. Shells usually mean a galaxy is in the process of digesting the last galaxy it consumed. Seen against the southwestern edge of the shell is the irregular galaxy VCC 367. Both have the same redshift. Could it be NGC 4270's next meal? I found nothing at all on this irregular galaxy to suggest they were even related but for about the same redshift value. The bright portion of NGC 4270 is about 52,000 light-years across. Including the shells and plume, it is some 115,000 light-years across. It was discovered by William Herschel on April 17, 1786 but isn't in either of the Herschel 400 observing programs.

NGC 4273 was the other galaxy on the to-do list. It is a very sloshed spiral galaxy with a drawn out arm to the south on the eastern side. It, like NGC 4270, is a member of the W Cloud rather than the Virgo Cluster so is about 120 million light-years distant. It is classified as an SB(s)c galaxy and about the only blue galaxy in a field of mostly red and dead galaxies. Sloshed galaxies are usually considered to be caused by tidal forces of a much larger nearby galaxy but that doesn't seem to be the case with this galaxy. Other than a few references to the core being off center or the galaxy being asymmetric I found nothing on it sloshed condition. Including the faint regions to the south, it is some 93,000 light-years across. The main blue region is 40,000 by 60,000 light-years in size. It was also discovered by William Herschel the same night as he found NGC 4270. It is in the original Herschel 400 list. My log from April 20, 1985 describes it as round galaxy brighter toward the center. Apparently, I didn't notice the core was so far off center.

Just to the east of NGC 4273 is NGC 4277. It is listed as SAB(rs)0/a. It has two faint, low contrast S-shaped arms and a faint outer halo that extends some distance from the main nearly circular form that extends to the northwest and southeast. Its main disk is 25,000 light-years across with the faint outer halo extending to 57,000 light-years more than doubling its size. It too was found by William Herschel that same April night.

The largest and brightest galaxy in the image is NGC 4281, an S0+ galaxy with an extended outer envelope and a hint of a dust lane running through the core. Redshift puts it slightly more distant than the other W cloud members. This may be more due to its motion around the cluster's center of mass than a real distance difference. Still, using the redshift-distance I get a size of 100,000 light-years for its bright region and 165,000 light-years for the diameter including the extended halo. It too was found by William Herschel the same night as the others and is in the initial Herschel 400 list. My comment the same night as 4273 but after a thick haze had moved in called it small with a starlike center. That haze must have been really doing a number on it. My notes say fog shut me down soon after. I should have gone back to it again but apparently never did.

Southeast of NGC 4273 is NGC 4268. It is an SB0/a: galaxy that has a faint Saturn like appearance with a bright round core and a ring structure that is oddly not included in its classification. A reference based on an image with the Crossley reflector notes it has a faint spiral structure. But after that there's no mention of it yet it's quite evident in my image which has only normal processing. It is some 60,000 light-years across. Even though I've seen it in a 6" scope Herschel somehow overlooked this one. In fact, it wasn't discovered until 76 years later when Eduard Schönfeld found it on April 1, 1862 using a 6" refractor.

NGC 4259 is the westernmost NGC galaxy in my frame. It is an S0 galaxy that is thought to be seen edge on. At least from this perspective, it is rather featureless. Being S0 it isn't surprising no dust lane is seen. It is about 45,000 light-years across. It was discovered by John Herschel on December 27, 1827.

At the top of my frame somewhat hidden by a bright star is NGC 4266 an edge on SB(s)a? spiral. Redshift puts it about 87 million light-years away. That's about halfway between the Virgo Cluster and the W cloud. But redshift of members of each but especially the Virgo Cluster can be highly distorted as members, due to the high mass of the clusters, have high velocities. For that reason, I will assume it is a member of the Virgo cluster and thus about 60 million light-years away. Using that distance it is about 42,000 light-years across. Larger if it is between the two clusters and 84,000 light-years if it is in the W Cloud. It was discovered by Albert Marth on May 26, 1864.

The last NGC galaxy in the frame is NGC 4282 listed as an S0/a galaxy only 60,000 light-years distant and thus the only one certainly in the Virgo Cluster. In both my image and the Sloan image a dust lane is visible. My image shows a blue band in its disk just north of the dust lane. Only hints of this are seen in the Sloan image. Why it is so strong in my image I don't understand. I see it easily in the raw data before any processing other than calibration. Of the 8 NGC galaxies in the frame, this is the smallest at only 16,000 light-years across. It too was discovered by Albert Marth the same May night as NGC 4266.

IC 3153 is the last major catalog galaxy. It is an Sc(r) near face on spiral that's 540,000 light-years distant. Its spiral arms seem rather messed up but there's nothing nearby to cause it. Could be due to something it digested a billion years ago I suppose. It's about 75,000 light-years across. It was found on April 8, 1894 by Hermann Kobold. He was a German astronomer at Strasboug Observatory. He found 38 IC objects using their 18" refractor. This may sound odd but only 3 of these were stars one being a double star. Back in visual days, it wasn't unusual for stars at the limit of visibility to be mistaken for a galaxy. To have this happen only 3 times out of 38 objects is actually good.

Many of the background galaxies are a bit over 1 billion light-years distant and cluster toward the lower right corner. They belong to the Abell 1516 galaxy cluster which is listed at 20 minutes in diameter and containing some 32 members. That count seems low to me. It is listed as morphology class II-III. Class III has no core galaxy, Class II has two or more major galaxies. I put the label across the center of the position as NED shows it. That's a bit south of LEDA 097407 that certainly appears to be the major galaxy of the cluster in my image. What is off the screen I don't know. Often a core galaxy of a cluster will be listed as cD but the only cD galaxy is well north of the center area which is unusual but not unheard of.

NED lists many UvES objects "Ultraviolet Excess Source" in the image. All could be quasars but so far haven't been confirmed and only have photographic redshift determinations. These can sometimes go astray.

Also in the frame are two asteroids, one very faint, the other rather bright. The trail has a break in the middle because conditions went south during the taking of this image and it stopped for a bit. Then improved enough that it could be finished. I got the blue data before it closed in again. The green and red frames were taken a different night. Even that night was poor so only one green was usable. With only blue recording the bright asteroid I removed it from the image since the asteroid was no longer in the frame when red and green data was taken several nights later. This last year and a half have been horrid for capturing data. I'm hoping this spell will eventually come to an end.

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

Related Designations for NGC4273

NGC4274

NGC 4274 is an odd barred spiral in Coma Berenices about 50 to 60 million light-years distant by redshift. Other measurements put it much closer or further but also average about 55 million light-years. If correct it is likely a member of the Virgo Cluster. It is classed as (R)SB(r)ab LINER. What drew my attention to it is the odd dust lane that suddenly veers in toward the core of the galaxy. Dust lanes down a bar are common but these don't also follow the spiral arm pattern. Also, they are usually rather weak compared to the dust lanes in the spiral arms. This one is a narrow lane that seems to define the inner edge of the spiral arms that form a ring-like structure getting strong as it approaches the bar then suddenly veers across the bar and toward the side of the core. The core is oval but at nearly right angles to the bar with each end rather pointed. The dark lane runs to one of these pointed ends. In IR light papers indicate there's an inner bar and ring structure at nearly right angles to the large outer bar and ring. This apparently is what is causing the bright core region to be misaligned with the main bar.

It was discovered by William Herschel on March 13, 1785. It is in the original H400 program. My short log note from May 20, 1985 on a humidity limiting night at 50x reads; "Large, highly oval galaxy. Form a quadruple with NGC 4245, 4283 and 4278."

As is often the case, in doing the annotated image I came up with a galaxy not in NED even though hundreds of far fainter one are included. It is noted with a question mark right (east) of NGC 4274.

Below NGC 4274 is a dwarf galaxy. LEDA 213976, whose redshift puts it closer than NGC 4274 but is just a tiny smudge by comparison. The difference while rather great isn't unheard of due to the orbital velocity of a satellite around its host galaxy. Could that be the case here? I find nothing either way on this.

Then to the lower right of LEDA 213976 is a real puzzle. It is in NED twice at slightly different positions. Once as 2MASX J12194996+2940172 at 230 million light years and as SDSS J121949.99+294017.5 at 3.7 billion light years. The listed magnitudes are 19.99 and 19.7 respectively. This seems to be the same galaxy listed twice. I've seen this many times but not with such a severe redshift difference. NED lists the 2MASS entry with a question mark. So apparently they prefer the Sloan data though never do explain the question mark after the z value for the redshift. Both positions are within the 0.65" error circle of the 2Mass object and 0.5" error circle of the Sloan image. Both reside in near the center of the single object shown in the Sloan image at that position.

Note my image is presented south at the top not north as I nearly always orient my images. The galaxy just didn't look right "upside down". I guess my brain wants the near side of a galaxy at the "bottom", at least in this case.

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

Related Designations for NGC4274

NGC4298

NGC 4298 and 4302 are a commonly imaged pair of galaxies in the Virgo galaxy cluster about 60 million light-years away. Redshift puts them a bit further than this. They share nearly the same redshift indicating they could be quite close together. This, however, appears rather unlikely as there's no real sign of interaction. If they were as close as they appear to be from our perspective distortion of NGC 4302's edge on disk should be obvious. It shows no sign of being warped. Both galaxies do show a large faint outer halo than their obvious disks but again, these would distort if they were really close and this isn't seen.

NGC 4298 is a somewhat face on flocculent galaxy. NED and the NGC project class it as SA(rs)c. If the outer halo is included it is over 90,000 light-years in diameter. The bright blue disk itself is about 50,000 light-years across.

NGC 4302 is seen virtually edge on and has a very dense dust lane that completely hides the core. The bright part of the disk is nearly 100,000 light-years wide and 11,500 thick. If the outer halo is included its dimensions are 150,000 by 30,000 light-years. While it shows no sign of a central bulge the ratio of the outer halo is only 150:30 = ~5:1. The Flat Galaxy Catalog requires a ratio of 7:1 as seen on the Palomar plates. Apparently, they include this faint outer halo. If only the bright disk was used it would qualify. Except for the ends of the disk it mostly surprisingly red. This may be due to the dust rather than old stars though it does show areas of blue, especially at the southern end near a foreground star. The same paper cited in my NGC 5777 post shows a similar, very small plume in this galaxy. They obviously got the directions wrong in their image and don't show the entire galaxy. What they do show has stars and other features subtracted out making it impossible for me to determine where they are looking.

Both NGC galaxies were discovered by William Herschel on April 8, 1784. Both are in the second H400 program.

I get an odd illusion with this pair. I see NGC 4298 as a buzz saw and NGC 4302 has having had the buzz saw cut off its northern arm as it passed through the galaxy coming toward us and our galaxy. Pure pareidolia as I doubt these two are interacting in any way though they may in the future as their redshifts are similar.

The annotated image shows catalog names for objects with names that are not just its coordinates. Many come from the Virgo Cluster Catalog (VCC) most of which aren't members of the cluster. VPC is the Virgo Photometric Catalog and it too contains non-cluster galaxies.

East of NGC 4302 is LEDA 169144 which is a really large spiral at 172,000 light-years in diameter if its redshift distance of 1.19 billion light-years is correct.

As usual, I ran into a rather bright fuzzy blue galaxy not in NED. Seems there's at least one in most of my images. As usual, it is noted by a question mark.

The sky was far from transparent this night but otherwise didn't harm the image. Due to lack of transparency, its limiting magnitude is about 21 which is 1.5 below my norm under good skies.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=5x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC4298

NGC4330

NGC 4330 is a fuzzy, somewhat warped edge on galaxy in northwestern Virgo not far from the "Realm of the Galaxies". It is also cataloged in the Flat Galaxy Catalog as FGC 1423, the main reason it went on my to-do list. Redshift puts it nearly 90 light-years distant but non-redshift measurements place it a bit over 60 million light-years away. The latter would make it a "Realm" galaxy as they are about 60 million light-years away. The higher redshift could just be due to its orbital velocity around the cluster. Cluster members can have even higher redshifts as well as slight blue shifts for this reason. It's its fuzzy outline and warped shape that interested me in imaging it. Note the fuzzy edges warp differently than the bright, well-defined-region. The northeast end warps up looking at the faint detail while the bright warps down. Both bright ends warp down. The west end of the fuzzy part is so, well fuzzy, I could argue for straight, bent down or maybe even up. In any case, these features would argue for a interaction or merger in its past. Being there are a lot of Virgo Cluster galaxies to the north and northeast such an interaction isn't surprising. It was discovered by Bindon Stoney on April 14, 1852.

When I saw the first frame come in there was a very faint smudge to the west. I was sure it was a ghost of some star reflecting off something. I get this rather often. In this case, it wasn't over a star so I figured I'd clone it out rather than move the scope. Turns out it is a real galaxy. Its classification indicates it is a very low surface brightness dwarf galaxy. While it is numbered with a Virgo Cluster number there were many in this image that had such designations but were some 890 million light-years distant. Still, I think it likely it a member of the cluster. But with no redshift data that's just a guess.

To the south-southwest of NGC 4330 is a similar galaxy, bright enough I was sure it was a galaxy while taking the image. Still, I wish it had redshift data. PGC 040134 to the northwest looks similar and has a redshift that puts it much closer than the Virgo Cluster. Still, as mentioned, redshifts in this range aren't surprising for members of the group. I suspect it too a dwarf member of the cluster.

Toward the right edge of the image is ASK5606.0. Seen in the Sloan image it is three overlapping galaxy-like objects. The position at NED points to the easternmost of the three. I drew a line to that part of the blob. My seeing this night wasn't sufficient to resolve the trio. It would take a great night. Those are rare, especially at the time of the year this region is best seen. Warm spring air and cold winter air is constantly fighting with me the loser.

In the upper left corner is a pair of galaxies, IC 3261 and Borngen 171 also known as PGC 40289. IC 3261 was discovered by Royal Frost on an image he took on May 7, 1904. There's nothing at his position. Oddly, no one been able to see the plate. Some say he actually saw Borngen 171 though it is further from his position. Others say Frost's description matches the one I've labeled IC 3261 and it quite likely his photo gear was unable of even seeing the other galaxy. I chose to use the Borngen designation as it is rare. Turns out there's another from his catalog nearby that likely is yet another Virgo Cluster member with a high redshift. Borngen 171 may be as well.

NGC 4352 in the lower left corner is at a high redshift for a cluster member but with a series of non-redshift measurements that put it squarely in line with it being a cluster member. It is an SA0: galaxy with little visible detail. It was discovered by William Herschel on March 15, 1784. It isn't in either Herschel 400 program.

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

Related Designations for NGC4330

NGC4331

NGC 4331 is a very weird galaxy in Draco west of the bottom of the bowl of the Little Dipper. Redshift puts it about 74 million light-years away. A single Tully-Fisher measurement says 87 million light-years. The NGC project says it is an irregular galaxy while NED goes a bit further saying Im? The "I" for irregular and the "m" for Magellanic type, that is having characteristics of the Magellanic Cloud galaxies. The CGPG maybe says it best: "Blue post-eruptive oval patchy compact with comet-like plume, d = 2' north-south immersed double knot." I assume that double knot is the odd pair of near star-like features in the lower part of the galaxy. To me, it looks like some one-celled protozoa I used to photograph as a kid through my microscope. Just a lot bluer than they were. Often a galaxy as weird as this one is the result of some interaction. I found nothing much within a 90 minute radius that looked like it had tangled with another galaxy though I did find a surprising number of galaxies at about its distance, 14 of them with NGC 4319 the most interesting looking. It is much larger so could do some damage with little harm to itself. I've added it to my to-do list. It lies some 51 minutes nearly due south and is considered by one paper to be somewhat disrupted. It was discovered by William Herschel on December 12, 1797. It's not in either H400 program.

This is a little studied area of the sky. I was unable to find anything more on this galaxy. NED had no distance data on any other object in the field so I didn't prepare an annotated image.

Seeing wasn't very good when I started on this one. Then after my first three luminance frames seeing went to pot. I took 5 then the color data then one more luminance frame before dawn terminated the session. Seeing suddenly improved again for that last frame. Though seeing wasn't very good for any I did use the best four. Color data had really bad seeing of 5" or worse FWHM. I didn't realize conditions had gotten so bad so never retook the data, unfortunately. So this is the best for now. It is on the reshoot list. Much of 2012 is on the reshoot list and so far things aren't looking much better for 2013.

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

Related Designations for NGC4331

NGC4359

NGC 4359 is a late type near edge-on spiral galaxy in northern Coma Berenices. It was discovered by William Herschel on March 20, 1787. It is in the second Herschel 400 program. My main reason for taking it is in my attempt to catch as many in that program as I can from this northern declination. Note the odd dust lane running diagonally across the galaxy's disk just west of the brighter core region. This reminds me a bit of the dust bands seen across M81. In the case of M81, they are due to dust in our galaxy. The entire field is full of galactic cirrus so it isn't surprising. Here there's very little cirrus so I suspect the dust is in NGC 4539 itself. I had no idea the band existed until it popped out of my processing. I see it in the SDSS images though it seems a bit stronger in mine for some reason.

Below NGC 4359 is an object I have labeled Q?. The SDSS lists it both as a galaxy and a quasar. Usually, I just consider it a quasar and move on. The problem here is it is rather red for a quasar. The color would favor it being a galaxy though the SDSS's first choice is a quasar. I added the question mark just in case that is wrong.

Otherwise, the field is rather ordinary for my images. Being well north of the ecliptic no asteroids are in the image.

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

Related Designations for NGC4359

NGC4361

NGC 4361 in a rather famous planetary in the quadrilateral of Corvus. The central star sits in a dark hole in the planetary. That isn't a processing artifact. The hole is real. I was unable to find any source for a distance to it other than one reference to 2500 light-years that gave no indication where the estimate came from. While Spitzer has imaged it, their text has no mention of distance. I suspect they would if there was any reliable estimate available. APOD and others similarly avoid even mentioning distance. http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/2710-ssc2009-15a3-Planetary-Nebula-NGC-4361

It was discovered by William Herschel on February 7, 1785. It's in the original H400 program. My log for that on the night of April 20-1985 with my 10" f/5 on a typical for me humid night at 50x reads: "Small fuff of a planetary nebula. Edges don't seem sharply defined though they do get sharper when the UHC filter is used. No central star was seen at 50x. Blue-green color faintly seen but isn't as striking as in most planetaries."

There are several galaxies in my image (you didn't expect me to not mention them) but again no distance data is available for them either. The area isn't in the Sloan survey. The obvious spindle galaxy to the northwest of NGC 4361 is 2MASX J12242187-1841381. The few others in the image NED catalogs are all from this catalog.

The planetary, when seen in black and white photos, shows a spiral shape rather like a distorted spiral galaxy with a bright core. There have been tales of astronomy instructors slipping it into an exercise for the students to classify galaxies. None give specifics so this may be just a tale. I'll admit that when I first brought up a raw luminance image to see about my note to retake it, I was in the middle of processing galaxies. My brain first saw it as a galaxy until the 4361 registered in my brain. At that point, I was thinking I'd misidentified the image and it really was a galaxy. So this tale certainly sounds plausible.

At -18.75 degrees it is down in my gunk and below my normal imaging limits. I gave it a try anyway last March. But the results were so bad I marked it retake. Still, I decided to give a try at pulling something out of the data. Blue was severely scattered by both ice in the air over the lake as well as normal atmospheric scattering. Thus my usual formulas for compensating for atmospheric scattering alone greatly under-compensated. With a lot of trial and error, I think I have a reasonable color balance. Seeing was a bit worse than 3" so the image is rather fuzzy. Still, it is better than I expected. Unless I get an exceptional night I'll likely not try again.

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

Related Designations for NGC4361