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DescriptionImages

NGC5112

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

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

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

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

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


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NGC5149

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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NGC5171

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related Designations for NGC5171

NGC 5171, UGC 08476, CGCG 072-089, CGCG 1326.9+1200, MCG +02-34-020, 2MASX J13292154+1144065, 2MASS J13292156+1144063, SDSS J132921.56+114406.4, GALEXASC J132921.65+114403.3 , WBL 447-004, LDCE 0978 NED004, HDCE 0798 NED004, USGC U537 NED09, MAPS-NGP O_498_0901158, NSA 143529, NRGb 247.023, NRGb 247.024x, PGC 047339, UZC J132921.6+114406, UZC-CG 193 NED01, CXO J132921.6+114407, 2XMM J132921.5+114408, 2XMMp J132921.5+114407, NGC 5176, CGCG 072-090, CGCG 1326.9+1203, MCG +02-34-021, 2MASX J13292494+1146535, 2MASS J13292497+1146531, SDSS J132924.95+114653.3, SDSS J132924.96+114653.3, IRAS F13269+1202, WBL 447-006, LDCE 0978 NED005, HDCE 0798 NED005, USGC U537 NED07, ASK 411213.0, HOLM 521A, MAPS-NGP O_498_0901497, NPM1G +12.0359, NSA 070697, NRGb 247.028, PGC 047338, UZC J132925.0+114653, UZC-CG 193 NED02, [TTL2012] 037195, [DZ2015] 600-03, NGC 5177, CGCG 072-091, CGCG 1326.9+1204, MCG +02-34-019, 2MASX J13292426+1147495, 2MASS J13292427+1147494, SDSS J132924.25+114749.3, SDSS J132924.26+114749.3, GALEXASC J132924.30+114749.4 , WBL 447-005, USGC U537 NED08, ASK 411211.0, HOLM 521B, MAPS-NGP O_498_0901429, NSA 070696, NRGb 247.026, PGC 047337, PTF10fps HOST, SSTSL2 J132924.25+114749.1, UZC J132924.3+114751, CXO J132924.2+114748, 2XMM J132924.2+114748, 2XMMp J132924.1+114749, [TTL2012] 037194, NGC 5178, UGC 08478, CGCG 072-093, CGCG 1327.0+1153, MCG +02-34-022, 2MASX J13292930+1137295, 2MASS J13292932+1137293, SDSS J132929.30+113729.1, SDSS J132929.31+113729.2, GALEXASC J132929.24+113729.1 , WBL 447-008, LDCE 0978 NED007, HDCE 0798 NED007, USGC U537 NED05, ASK 410973.0, HOLM 522A, MAPS-NGP O_498_0985539, NSA 070634, NRGb 247.032, PGC 047358, UZC J132929.3+113729, UZC-CG 193 NED03, NVSS J132929+113728, 2XMM J132929.2+113730, 2XMMp J132929.3+113729, [TTL2012] 019794, NGC 5179, MRK 1349, CGCG 072-094, CGCG 1327.0+1201, MCG +02-34-023, 2MASX J13293087+1144445, 2MASS J13293089+1144451, SDSS J132930.88+114444.9, SDSS J132930.88+114445.0, GALEXASC J132930.84+114445.2 , WBL 447-007, LDCE 0978 NED008, HDCE 0798 NED008, USGC U537 NED04, AGC 230366, ASK 410964.0, MAPS-NGP O_498_0901899, NPM1G +12.0361, NSA 070626, NRGb 247.033, PGC 047363, UZC J132930.9+114445, UZC-CG 193 NED04, CXO J132930.9+114445, 2XMM J132930.9+114446, 2XMMp J132930.9+114446, [TTL2012] 019786, SDSS J132930.89+114445.1, [DZ2015] 600-01, NGC5171, NGC5176, NGC5177, NGC5178, NGC5179, ECO 04114, ECO 04116, ECO 04115, SAFIRES J132924.30+114749.8, ECO 04118, SAFIRES J132929.64+113729.7, ECO 04121,


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NGC5174

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

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

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

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

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


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NGC5183

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related Designations for NGC5183

NGC 5183, UGC 08485, CGCG 016-079, CGCG 1327.5-0128, MCG +00-34-039, 2MASX J13300614-0143144, 2MASXi J1330061-014312, 2MASS J13300612-0143140, SDSS J133006.14-014314.1, SDSS J133006.14-014314.2, SDSS J133006.15-014314.1, GALEXASC J133006.15-014315.4 , IRAS 13275-0127, AKARI J1330055-014309, KPG 378A, 6dF J1330060-014314, 6dF J1330061-014314, LDCE 0986 NED001, USGC U538 NED02, BMW-HRI J133006.4-014316, ASK 197369.0, HOLM 523B, NSA 034883, PGC 047432, UZC J133006.2-014316, NVSS J133005-014314, 2XMM J133006.1-014318, 2XMMp J133006.1-014318, 1XMM J133006.3-014317, [WB2011] J133006.0-014304, [TTL2012] 019591, [VFK2015] J202.52588-01.72034 , NGC 5184, UGC 08487, CGCG 016-081, CGCG 1327.6-0125, MCG +00-34-041, 2MASX J13301147-0139474, 2MASXi J1330113-013947, 2MASS J13301149-0139471, SDSS J133011.48-013947.2, SDSS J133011.49-013947.2, SDSS J133011.49-013947.3, GALEXASC J133011.40-013947.1 , AKARI J1330113-013951, KPG 378B, 2dFGRS N266Z133, LDCE 0986 NED002, USGC U538 NED01, ASK 197408.0, APMUKS(BJ) B132736.80-012410.8, GSC 4966 00120, HOLM 523A, MAPS-NGP O_618_1169166, NSA 034884, PGC 047438, UZC J133011.5-013948, NVSS J133011-013948, [WOS91] 863G001, [TTL2012] 019626, NGC 5192, CGCG 017-001, CGCG 1328.3-0131, 2MASX J13305167-0146433, 2MASXi J1330516-014643, 2MASS J13305167-0146433, SDSS J133051.67-014643.3, SDSS J133051.68-014643.3, IRAS 13282-0131, IRAS F13282-0131, 6dF J1330517-014643, ASK 197381.0, GSC 4966 00204, NSA 034882, PGC 047503, UZC J133051.7-014643, NVSS J133051-014645, 2XMM J133051.6-014642, 2XMMp J133051.5-014642, [WOS91] 863G037, [BSL2004] J133051.7-014642.9 , [BFW2006] J202.71532-01.77871 , Mr19:[BFW2006] 10023 NED01, [TTL2012] 019603, NGC 5196, CGCG 017-002, CGCG 1328.8-0121, 2MASX J13311969-0136537, 2MASXi J1331196-013653, 2MASS J13311966-0136540, SDSS J133119.66-013654.1, SDSS J133119.66-013654.2, GALEXASC J133119.66-013653.4 , 2dFGRS N265Z176, USGC U540 NED04, 2PIGG NGPGAL B+3.52886-0.02370, APMUKS(BJ) B132845.25-012128.8, MAPS-NGP O_619_0692755, NPM1G -01.0380, NSA 163626, PGC 047540, UZC J133119.6-013655, [BFW2006] J202.83195-01.61504 , Mr18:[BFW2006] 05066 NED03, Mr19:[BFW2006] 10024 NED03, [TTL2012] 004874, [DZ2015] 537-01, NGC5183, NGC5184, NGC5192, NGC5196, [PJY2015] 587729778512953464 ,


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NGC5201

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

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

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

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

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

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


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NGC5204

NGC 5204 is a dwarf, very blue, spiral galaxy of the Magellanic class, that is barely recognizable as a spiral, about 15 million light-years distant in Ursa Major. It is considered a companion to be one of 4 easily resolved, blue companions to M101 though M101 is over 6 degrees to its southeast, far out of my image frame. It is listed as having a lot of HII regions which show up as blue in my image due to the large number of very young, blue hot stars they contain. This is another one that could benefit from H alpha data. Fortunately, its redshift is low enough that my 6nm filter should work. It was discovered by William Herschel on April 24, 1789. It is in the second H400 program.

I was surprised to find a quasar candidate seen through the galaxy. It is marked in the annotated image. Several galaxies are also seen through its disk though none had redshift data so I didn't include them in the annotated image. The bright part of its disk is 16,000 light-years across but if you include the very faint outer reaches it is about 24,000 light-years across. Being so close it shows a lot of interesting detail right into its core region.

To its northeast is the odd galaxy LEDA 2579321. It has a very off-center core to its northeastern end and an odd plume coming away from the galaxy. At least I assume it is a plume. NED shows nothing for its position. Otherwise, I'd have considered it a different galaxy, likely one even more distant. But considering how something has moved the core of this galaxy so far off center I suspect whatever that cause it may have created the plume as well. It also has an odd bright blue star cloud toward the southwest end. I wish we were closer to this one and could see better what's going on here.

The galaxy CGCG 294-040 to the southeast of NGC 5204 is classified as an elliptical galaxy but it looks more like a compact spiral to my eye. But both NED and the NGC project consider it an elliptical.

Two AGN galaxies lie about 900 million light-years distant on the right edge of my image. They are likely related. I have to wonder if they may have passed close to each other feeding their black holes sufficiently to create their AGN status.

There are several more galaxy clusters in the field than I have annotated. I only list those with an obvious bright cluster galaxy at its heart that is listed at NED. Some were so vague I couldn't really tell what to point to as they had a large error circle and no core galaxy, just a few possible faint galaxies in the area. Then there are groups I'd have thought were clusters that aren't listed at NED. Maybe they are just a random gathering of unrelated background galaxies at varying distances.

This was taken on one of the very few good nights this last May. Unfortunately by this time of the year (May 29) I can get only one object a night this time of the year.

14" LX200 @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick


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NGC5211

NGC 5211 is a rather strange spiral galaxy in Virgo 170 to 180 million light-years distant. It is classified by NED as (R')SAB(rs)ab pec though the NGC project says Sb/SBb apparently undecided if it is a barred spiral or not. Some sources say it is similar to NGC 210 though NED and the NGC project classifies that as SAB(s)b (no ring). So by the NGC project, they are similar and by NED they aren't. To me it is similar in that the outer arms start from the ends of very faint bars extending out from an inner disk.

NGC 5211 was discovered by John Herschel on April 14, 1828 (Edit: I originally incorrectly credit it to his dad). It is a rather large galaxy. I get a diameter of about 112,000 light-years assuming the 180 million light-year distant. It has one apparent true companion UGC 8526. It has a slightly larger redshift putting it at 190 million light-years. Since relative velocities can easily account for this difference it is likely they are closer to the same distance than redshift indicates. It is a much smaller spiral being only a bit over 41,000 light-years across. NED classifies it simply as S? Other sources call it a blue compact galaxy. It looks like an Sbc to my untrained eye. It is about the same size as M33 but has a much higher surface brightness and star density than M33.

While the field is near the edge of the Virgo Cluster none of that cluster's galaxies are in the image. In fact, all are well beyond the cluster. Most that NED has redshift data on are more than a billion light-years distant with one at almost 6 billion light-years. Thus most are quite faint. The faintest I found redshift data for was Magnitude 22.9 indicating this night was more transparent than I've had in months. Unfortunately seeing wasn't as great.

To recap some abbreviations used in the annotated image. "p" means it is a photographic redshift rather than the more accurate spectroscopic redshift. NLAGN stands for Narrow Line Active Galactic Nucleus indicating it is a close cousin to a quasar. BLAGN is Broad Line Active Galactic Nucleus http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Sept09/Gaskell/frames.html This link is by an astronomer I've worked with and know well. ELG means an emission line galaxy where emission lines are obvious in its spectrum http://www.usm.uni-muenchen.de/people/saglia/praktikum/galspectra/node4.html . NELG means narrow emission line galaxy. LINER means Low-Ionization Nuclear Emission-line Region http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Glossary/Essay_liner.html .

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


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NGC5247

NGC 5247 is a rather nearby galaxy in southern Virgo below my 15-degree limit. Due to clouds in the north I had open sky only to the south and seeing was above average allowing me to give it a try. It was on my list for two reasons. One it has two main arms but a third arm just floats not connected to the other two. Several spurs come off the two arms but this one seems unconnected to either. Arp had a category for such three-armed spiral so it went on my Arp-like to-do list. The other reason is the very odd small but sharply defined dust cloud that cut right across the gap between the northern arm and the core coming to a point near the core then expanding in a puff beyond the bright core region after disappearing for a bit. While I found many papers on this galaxy not one mentions this odd dust lane.

A few HII regions appear faintly in my image. It is a bit over 70 million light-years distant by both redshift and a single non-redshift estimate. Including the faint plumes to the east and west, it is some 150,000 light-years across. Measuring just the main arms it is about 95,000 light-years across. It was discovered by William Herschel on March 17, 1787. With its somewhat faint surface brightness it didn't make either of the Herschel 400 observing programs nor have I any record of trying to see it visually.

Located this low it is out of the Sloan and many other galaxy survey fields so it was the only galaxy besides 2 2MASS galaxies which, since I was making an annotated image for the two asteroids I included. Unfortunately, the pair of galaxies at the upper right I'd liked to have information on weren't listed as galaxies. The bluer one (upper right face on) was listed as an Ultraviolet source seen by GALEX but not identified further. Also, another pair west and a bit south of the center of NGC 5247 isn't listed at all but NED does show a quasar candidate about halfway between the two where I see nothing but the overlapping galaxy. They give no magnitude nor size. But with an error circle of 5" it's hard to pin down what exactly it is seeing. Apparently not either galaxy. Considering several hundred UvS were seen by GALEX, most of which are stars I didn't try to determine which were galaxies.

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


NGC5247L4X10RGB2X10.JPG


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NGC5247L4X10RGB2X10ID.JPG

NGC5248

NGC 5248 is a spectacular spiral galaxy that doesn't get nearly the attention from amateur imagers as it should. It is located in the very southwest corner of Bootes just over the border from Virgo and is considered a member of one arm of the Virgo Cluster. That means its distance is likely in the 50 to 60 million light-year range. I can't find any consensus in the literature. I'm going to go with the 60 million light-year figure as it is a good average for the cluster. Even though the average of all non-redshift measurements at NED are only 50 million light-years with the newest estimates at only 40 million. Assuming the 60 million light-year distance it is some 170,000 light-years in diameter when the very faint outer arms are included. Some but not all classifications consider these outer arms a pseudo-ring giving its classification as (R)SB(rs)bc. It also has a Seyfert 2 core with HII emission. This comes from a ring of star-forming clouds 12" in diameter around the core. Seeing was fair for my image but I only picked up this ring as a mottling around the outer edge of the round core. High-resolution images from the HST show the core has its own spiral structure, sort of a spiral within a spiral. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/Ngc5248-hst-R814G547B336.jpg Oddly, even with all this star formation going on one paper calls the galaxy inactive. http://mnras.oxfordjournals.org/content/379/4/1249.full.pdf They also give its distance as 74 million light-years. While the core is quite active the disk appears to have little star formation. Some images show a few HII regions in the main dust lane but they are small. The overall color of the galaxy is much redder than in most spirals. It may be this lack of disk star formation that caused it to be listed as inactive in the paper though it does contrast it to Seyfert 2 galaxies without ever mentioning it too is a Seyfert 2 galaxy.

While all sources call it a slightly barred galaxy I am unable to see any hint of the bar, even in the HST image. Occasionally the bar is seen only at radio frequencies. This might be such a case. It is true the arms come off this 12" diameter ring of star formation rather than the core but I see no bar leading to this ring.

The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on April 15, 1784. It is in the original Herschel 400 observing program. My notes from that read: "Large, almost round galaxy with a nearly starlike nucleus. Interesting detail is seen in the halo. I can almost see the spiral arms. I must come back to this one on a good night." My notes on conditions read "Thick ground fog". As you likely know I often mention reshooting an image but it rarely happens. Seems I had that same issue back in April of 1985 as I never recorded revisiting it even though I put several exclamation points after that comment. It's a big universe out there with too much to explore for me to find time to go back to the old. That's my excuse anyway.

Large but faint outer arms like seen here are often the sign of interaction with another galaxy. None are in my frame though I didn't check around the area outside the field. More likely lack of star formation in the disk, as well as the active core, are due to something it digested in the past. This can kill star formation except in the dense core giving a galaxy this appearance. But it certainly isn't required that this happened. It may just be natural for this galaxy.

Only one quasar and two asteroids are in the image The field contains a lot of galaxies but few had redshift data leading to a rather sparse annotated image. As with much of my imaging of late, the night went south on me. Color data is highly suspect. One green frame never was taken as it was scheduled last and conditions got so bad that after the first green frame the observatory shut down. I didn't discover the missing green frame until I went to process it. Fortunately green is the least critical color and there was no space junk in the single green frame. Every blue and 3 luminance frames had at least one piece of space junk, some frames had two. With no space junk, I managed to make the one green frame do.

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


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NGC5248L4X10RB2X10G1X10CROP125.JPG


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Ngc5248-hst-R814G547B336.jpg