NGC6211

NGC 6211 was on my list for three reasons. First it was an odd galaxy, secondly it was a very red galaxy and third, it was part of a chain of red galaxies, all apparently at the same distance. I finally got around to it on June 17, 2013. The several years delay turned out to be serendipitous. Unknown to me, on May 29th supernova 2013cw blew up in the galaxy. I didn't discover this until I went to process the image. So there was the fourth reason to look at this galaxy though I didn't know it at the time.

All 4 galaxies in the chain are at a redshift look back distance of 240 million light-years. This makes NGC 6211 about 100,000 light-years across. Besides its large amorphous red halo, it has a bright white core region that has a couple bright regions besides the very core. Just outside this is a dark band in some areas. At first, I thought I'd done something stupid to create this band when processing it but it is seen faintly in the raw FITS files so is real, just enhanced due to the curves used to bring out the blobs in the core. I didn't process the core region separately, it got the same curve treatment the halo did and as did the rest of the field. NGC 6211 is also known as UGC 10516. The other galaxies in the chain are also part of UGC 10516 being noted in NED as Notes 1, Notes 2 and Notes 3 in order of increasing distance from NGC 6211/UGC 10516. UGC 10516 Notes 1 is also known as NGC 6213. CGCG 299-018 is Notes 2 and CGCG 0299-019 is Notes 3. The two NGC galaxies were found by Lewis Swift on June 25, 1887.

There's yet another red galaxy in the image down in the lower left corner. I moved the chain left of center to pick it up when making the image. It is the SO/a galaxy UGC 10500 and it too is at the same 240 million light-years distance by redshift as the others. It has some hints of blue but is mostly red like the other 4.

While there are a lot more galaxies and likely at least one galaxy cluster or two in the image, NED had no redshift data on any of them, including one chain member. All 9 galaxies in NED are identified in the annotated image.

This is the last of only 9 objects I was able to catch in June. Short nights and poor skies limited what I could do. July was little better with only 10 new objects captured.

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

Related Designations for NGC6211

NGC6229

NGC 6229 is the "other" globular in Hercules. M13 and M92 get all the attention while poor NGC 6992 tends to be the wallflower. It isn't big and bright as the other two are. Not because it isn't a major globular cluster but because it is about 100,000 light-years away on the outskirts of the galactic halo. Put it in close like M92 and M13 and it would be a grand sight. Discovered by William Herschel in 1787 he cataloged it as a planetary nebula being unable to resolve it into stars. In 1819 Admiral Smyth reports someone recorded it as a comet. This distant guy got no respect it seems.

It was discovered by William Herschel on May 12, 1787. It is in the original H400 program. My entry on a good night with my 10" f/5 at 180x says; "Small globular with a bright core and faint outer halo. Some hint of resolution to the halo. Core bright but not even grainy let alone resolved." My image on a bad night of seeing still managed to resolve it to the center.

While my field contains hundreds of galaxies only 3 and one quasar have redshift data. Since I used 5 minute subs rather than 10 minute subs and only 40 minutes of them, same as I normally do with 10 minute subs, this one doesn't go as deep as normal. I chose to use 5 minute subs for the L channel because that prevented the core from being saturated. By using 5 minute subs I could better resolve the core. To compensate for more read noise I need to take about an hour's worth of data. I forgot about this when taking the image. Still, you can faintly see the quasar at 12 billion light-years light travel time. Since the color filters block a lot of light I could use my normal 10 minute color subs.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=8x5' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC6229

NGC6239

NGC 6239 is a very disturbed spiral in Hercules. Redshift puts it about 42 million light-years distant but other measurements place it much further away ranging from 61 to 83 million light-years with a median value of 73 million I show in the annotated image. If the 42 million light-year figure is right then the main part of the galaxy (not including the loops to the east and plumes to the west is only 18,500 light years in diameter. That's pretty dinky. If the 83 million light-year figure is used then it is a more reasonable 37 million light-years in diameter, about the size of M33 for example. Thus I tend to think the larger Tully-fisher determined distances of 73 to 83 million light-years may be more accurate. It was discovered by William Herschel on April 12, 1788. It is in the second H400 program.

In any case this galaxy appears to have loops on the eastern side and plumes on the western side that indicate some hapless even smaller galaxy was digested by it in the recent past. To the east is AGC 262744 or PGC 2204813 if you prefer that catalog. It has virtually the same redshift and is also highly disturbed looking. Is this also due to an encounter with NGC 6239? Seems possible. An old note (1964) at NED seems to think so. It reads: "Bright complex bar. One short, bright arm. Double outer loop (a helix?). Very faint asymmetric extensions. A most peculiar system! Small colliding pair at 7.5 arcmin." Another indicates there is strong emission spectra (probably HII related) coming from the bar though I didn't pick it up and another note based on a 200" Palomar image also failed to see the HII regions blaming them on being below their seeing limit. So it is no wonder I didn't see them. NED however does classify NGC 6239 as SB(s)b pec? HII. Another to try with the H alpha filter sometime. I've included a very simple process of a raw HST image of the core region of NGC 6239 that shows the star-like objects in the core region of my image are all star knots in the galaxy. Also I see little hint of resolution of the major stars of the galaxy in the HST image. This argues for the a distance greater than redshift would indicate as normally the HST easily resolves a ton of starsNGC 6239 is a very disturbed spiral in Hercules. Redshift puts it about 42 million light-years distant but other measurements place it much further away ranging from 61 to 83 million light-years with a median value of 73 million I show in the annotated image. If the 42 million light-year figure is right then the main part of the galaxy (not including the loops to the east and plumes to the west is only 18,500 light years in diameter. That's pretty dinky. If the 83 million light-year figure is used then it is a more reasonable 37 million light-years in diameter, about the size of M33 for example. Thus I tend to think the larger Tully-fisher determined distances of 73 to 83 million light-years may be more accurate. It was discovered by William Herschel on April 12, 1788. It is in the second H400 program.

In any case, this galaxy appears to have loops on the eastern side and plumes on the western side that indicate some hapless even smaller galaxy was digested by it in the recent past. To the east is AGC 262744 or PGC 2204813 if you prefer that catalog. It has virtually the same redshift and is also highly disturbed looking. Is this also due to an encounter with NGC 6239? Seems possible. An old note (1964) at NED seems to think so. It reads: "Bright complex bar. One short, bright arm. Double outer loop (a helix?). Very faint asymmetric extensions. A most peculiar system! small colliding pair at 7.5 arcmin." Another indicates there are strong emission spectra (probably HII related) coming from the bar though I didn't pick it up and another note based on a 200" Palomar image also failed to see the HII regions blaming them on being below their seeing limit. So it is no wonder I didn't see them. NED, however, does classify NGC 6239 as SB(s)b pec? HII. I've included a very simple process of a raw HST image of the core region of NGC 6239 that shows the star-like objects in the core region of my image are all star knots in the galaxy. Also, I see little hint of resolution of the major stars of the galaxy in the HST image. This argues for a distance greater than redshift would indicate as normally the HST easily resolves a ton of stars in a galaxy at 42 million light-years but few at 80.

AGC 262744 is pretty much ignored by NED as to classification and any published notes on it. So I can't help further with it.

Sometimes serendipity strikes. It has in this case. Look to the annotated image for SDSS J1650+4251 to the upper left of NGC 6239. It is the combined light of a galaxy at some 5.6 billion light-years and a lensed quasar at almost 9.5 billion light-years. Thanks to my lousy seeing I can't separate the two. I doubt any of the galaxy's light is seen and all I'm picking up is multiple images of the quasar. As seen in the SDSS image it appears to be a lensed into two or maybe three blue blobs of light. The SDSS image is at 0.2" per pixel. I can't see the lensing galaxy in their image either. There is a color difference that may indicate the galaxy is mixed with the southern image of the quasar. It may show only spectroscopically as a separate object. I had no idea it was in the image until I asked NED for what all was in the image that had a measured redshift. This isn't the first surprise I've had doing this. It happens every few months. Another reason to research your images. You might find a pleasant surprise lurking there you never suspected such as this lensed quasar.

Otherwise, the image is rather typical of what I'd expect imaging in Hercules. Several galaxy clusters and lots of distant galaxies. I've added a new flag on the distance estimates. Most are redshift determined spectroscopically using NED's 5 year WMAP calculator. Those with a "p" after the distance. One, however, has the label of "f". That stands for "Friend of Friend" which is used when it is assumed the object is related to others and its distance uses other well determined redshifts of assumed nearby objects to calculate its distance estimate.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME in a galaxy at 42 million light-years but few at 80.

AGC 262744 is pretty much ignored by NED as to classification and any published notes on it. So I can't help further with it.

Sometimes serendipity strikes. It has in this case. Look to the annotated image for SDSS J1650+4251 to the upper left of NGC 6239. It is the combined light of a galaxy at some 5.6 billion light-years and a lensed quasar at almost 9.5 billion light-years. Thanks to my lousy seeing I can't separate the two. I doubt any of the galaxy's light is seen and all I'm picking up is multiple images of the quasar. As seen in the SDSS image it appears to be a lensed into two or maybe three blue blobs of light. The SDSS image is at 0.2" per pixel. I can't see the lensing galaxy in their image either. There is a color difference that may indicate the galaxy is mixed with the southern image of the quasar. It may show only spectroscopically as a separate object. I had no idea it was in the image until I asked NED for what all was in the image that had a measured redshift. This isn't the first surprise I've had doing this. It happens every few months. Another reason to research your images. You might find a pleasant surprise lurking there you never suspected such as this lensed quasar.

Otherwise the image is rather typical of what I'd expect imaging in Hercules. Several galaxy clusters and lots of distant galaxies. I've added a new flag on the distance estimates. Most are redshift determined spectroscopically using NED's 5 year WMAP calculator. Those with a "p" after the distance. One however has the label of "f". That stands for "Friend of Friend" which is used when it is assumed the object is related to others and its distance uses other well determined redshifts of assumed nearby objects to calculate its distance estimate.

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

Related Designations for NGC6239

NGC6240

How Arp missed or decided against putting this rather famous galaxy in his catalog I can't fathom. During the time of his atlas, the best anyone could do in understanding this one was shown in comments like this from a 1964 paper: "Complex core with strong dark lane. Distorted. Faint outer filament. No nearby object of similar size. Another very peculiar object." We now know this is the result of a galaxy merger. It has two nuclei only 1.8" apart. As the early paper says it is quite alone in space. This makes the merger all the more surprising. The galaxy is a super-luminous IRAS (infrared) galaxy and a starburst galaxy. Both likely the result of the merger. It has spectral characteristics of LINER and Seyfert 2 galaxies. Redshift puts it 335 million light-years away and is seen against the stars of Ophiuchus. It is well covered by the HST. They say it is 400 million light-years distant. I can't explain the difference but it does show the difficulty of determining distance to such objects. It was discovered by Édouard Stephan on July 12, 1871. For further information on this merger and to see the great HST image of it go to: http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/large/heic0810ai.jpg

The only other galaxy in the image with any redshift data is HELLAS 190. This is an X-ray catalog with very poor resolution. The error bar was so large several possible objects were within the error circle, all very near the limit of my image. Its redshift puts it 4.2 billion light years away. Virtually everything else comes from the 2MASS survey of infrared objects. None have any distance data.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=5x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC6240

NGC6248

NGC 6248 is a low surface brightness blue barred spiral located in Draco southeast of the bowl of the Little Dipper. It is classified as SBcd or SBd depending on the source. Redshift puts it about 51 million light-years distant while other measurements all show it much further away. Their average is about 84 million light-years. I measure the extreme length of the major axis to be 198" of arc. That translates to a diameter of 49,000 to 81,000 light-years. Most blue low surface brightness galaxies with little spiral structure I've imaged are usually less than 50,000 light-years in size. So I'm going to go with the closer and thus smaller size as I can't find anything else on this galaxy to help decide this issue.

In fact, this entire field is poorly studied. NED lists only 3 small galaxies in my frame beside NGC 6248, none of which have even a magnitude estimate let alone a redshift measurement. The Galex satellite records some 500 objects in the frame, all of which are listed at NED as being an Ultraviolet Source. Some are galaxies in my image, most are stars. Galex could only give approximate positions for its objects resulting in an error circle of about 7 seconds of arc. This makes identifying these more difficult as often two or three objects are in the error circle. I didn't try to sort out which were galaxies as they also have no distance, magnitude or much other data and are listed only by coordinates.

This galaxy was discovered by Lewis Swift on August 11, 1885. It seems most low surface brightness galaxies are very blue like this. The blue stars are quite short-lived, 10 to 100 million years and they are history. What were they before and after this short time span? Do they have or are collecting enough dust and hydrogen to keep forming new stars continually for billions of years? If so they should gain a lot of mass yet that isn't happening that I find. Anyone seen this issue discussed in any paper?

This is yet another object that, thanks to weather took many nights to collect enough data. It was started on the morning of July 4 and finished 19 days later on July 23. Most frames were unusable due to weather. I wanted more data due to this one being so faint but, as has been often the case this year, that never happened. I gave up and decided to go with what I had and try moving on to something else.

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

Related Designations for NGC6248

NGC6255

NGC 6255 is a low surface brightness barred spiral galaxy toward the upper middle of the keystone of Hercules about 42 million light-years distant by redshift. Other measurements are all over the board ranging from 56 to 104 million light-years with a median of 68 million light-years. All indicate it is further than the redshift value. So I'll assume the median value is the more reasonable one. At that distance, it is about 75,000 light-years across, rather typical for a spiral though large for most low surface brightness ones I've imaged. While it has a bright bar I see no core or central bulge.

On its east edge is a bright blue star cloud so bright it almost looks like a field star in my image. Several sources including NED say it is a separate galaxy with HII emission though what few notes I find on it say it is just a rich, dense star cloud in the galaxy. One reads: "The galaxy has been noted to have a possible companion (HS 1653+3634) which lies 75" to the east. It seems more likely from GALEX data that this object is just a particularly bright, blue cluster complex in the XUV-disk of NGC 6255." I tend to agree. Redshift would indicate that is the case as well with that side if the galaxy rotating toward us reducing the measured redshift slightly. In any case, I've marked it in the annotated image.

NGC 6225 was discovered on May 16, 1787 by William Herschel but being so faint it didn't make either of the Herschel 400 observing lists. I suspect it would be a difficult target for even a 16" scope seen visually.

I moved it to the west from center as even in the 10-second framing image I'd taken I saw what appeared to be two galaxy clusters well to the east and wanted to better include them in the frame. Turns out that was a good idea as they both show quite nicely. The galaxy was so faint I'd hoped to get at least 8 frames of luminance and 3 for each color but that meant two nights work in early July and the weather just didn't cooperate. I took this data on July 3, my first July image but the fifth luminance frame was severely hurt by dawn. I included it but doubt it helped much if any. I put it back on the list for a second run but that never happened so I went with the data I was able to get.

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

Related Designations for NGC6255

NGC6274

NGC 6274 is either a single spiral galaxy or a pair of them depending on the source. NED considers it a double system while The NGC Project says it refers only to the northern face on spiral. I've gone with NED on the annotated image. Seligman sides with the NGC Project and further adds that while they are at the same distance they aren't likely an interacting pair "as they do not show signs of distortion corresponding to a very close interaction or collision." The southern galaxy certainly has been severely warped by something though I agree the northern galaxy seems undisturbed. Computer simulations show most of the distortion comes well after the time of closest passage. While the individual stars will start to be pulled around it takes a lot of time for that motion to be sufficient to be seen at our great distance. Once moving they continue to for hundreds of thousands of years, long after the interaction started. If the galaxies aren't gravitationally bound one can be far distant by the time we see the distortion it caused. The denser the galaxy the lesser the damage and the more time needed to see it. This could explain why the more distant end of the southern galaxy shows more warp than the end apparently closer to the northern galaxy. If it encountered it first it would be the end to first show the results. So while they may truly not be interacting I'm not all that convinced.

There wasn't much information on this field at NED. While it listed several thousand galaxies in the field very few had much data and only a handful had distance data. I've annotated all that did have distance data as well as a few that didn't. The latter has "na" where the distance would have gone. All with distance are at about the same half-billion light-year distance so likely related being part of a sparse galaxy group. That may apply to those of similar size without distance data but there's no way to tell, unfortunately.

Located just south of the southeastern star of the Keystone in Hercules it was discovered by Albert Marth as #326 in his list of deep sky objects. At a redshift distance of 530 million light-years, the face on galaxy is about 77,000 light-years across. The edge on galaxy appears to lie in front of the face on galaxy but has the same redshift distance. I can't tell if Marth found it, no discoverer is mentioned that I could find. It is slightly larger in size at 97,000 light-years in diameter as seen from our edge on perspective.

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

Related Designations for NGC6274

NGC6332

This field in Hercules contains part of the NGC 6329 galaxy group anchored by that large elliptical galaxy. The group is about 370 million light-years distant by redshift measurement. While the group contains some galaxies west of this field most of them are to the east of NGC 6329 so that's what I aimed for. I planned to get the eastern galaxies in a later shot but this was the last night I could image for over a month so it never happened as the group was too far west by the time the weather improved. Maybe next year.

NGC 6329 is nearly 250,000 light-years across by my measurement. Truly a huge elliptical galaxy. It was discovered by Édouard Stephan on July 11, 1876. Its core is a strong X-ray source. NED and the NGC project classifies it as simply E while Seligman says E0? Other than that I found little on it.

NGC 6327 lies to its southwest. It is listed by NED as a compact galaxy as does the NGC Project and Seligman though he adds 2 question marks. I found no redshift for it at NED. It too was discovered by Édouard Stephan a week after he found NGC 6329, on July 18, 1876. With no redshift to go by and assuming it is a member of the group which seems likely, it is "only" 74,000 light-years across. Large for a compact galaxy.

NGC 6332 is a rather red spiral galaxy. It is listed as Sa by NED and the NGC project but Sa? by Seligman (only one question mark this time). It was discovered by Édouard Stephan the same night as NGC 6329. Including its faint plumes, it is a huge spiral at 240,000 light-years in size by my measurement.

The last NGC galaxy is NGC 6336 a small spiral galaxy a bit bluer than NGC 6332 but still redder than I expected. It is classed as SAB(s)a by NED, SBa by the NGC project and SBa? by Seligman. It too was discovered by Édouard Stephan the night he found NGC 6332 and 6329. I measure it at 119,000 light-years in size. A bit larger than our galaxy.

There's one IC object in the frame but is an error by Guillaume Bigourdan. He saw the double star as a "cluster, very small, nebulous, very faint double star involved". At least that's how Dreyer portrays it. The double star is correct but obviously not the rest. He also had a 2-degree declination error in everything he did that night. Apparently June 1, 1897 wasn't a good night for him.

Most of the galaxies in the field don't have redshift measurements. It is likely they too are members of the NGC 6329 group so it wasn't deemed worth the effort to get spectroscopic data on but the major ones. That's my idea anyway.

The field contains quite a few quasars. They pretty much disprove Arp's theory that they are nearby objects ejected from active galaxies. While these are large galaxies they don't begin to have sufficient activity for his now discredited theory.

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

Related Designations for NGC6332

NGC6338

NGC 6338 is the cD galaxy anchoring the SDSS-C4-DR3 3152 galaxy cluster. The cluster contains some 83 members about 400 million light-years away near the head of Draco. NGC 6338 is classed as an S0 galaxy rather than elliptical and has a redshift that puts it 370 million light-years distant, somewhat closer than the listed value for the cluster it anchors. Adding to the confusion NED lists a 6 galaxy NGC 6338 group at 380 million light-years. All this indicates how difficult it is pinning a distance to a galaxy or group of galaxies. It was discovered by William Herschel on April 24, 1789. It isn't in either H400 program

Just north of NGC 6338 is the galaxy pair of VII Zw 700 that share a common halo of stars. Redshift puts the brighter core at 430 million light years. The fainter southern core has no redshift data.

The annotated image shows the distances to the galaxies (G) in the image in billions of light-years. Normally most are over a billion light years distant but in this case, most are around 400 million but I stuck with convention. UvES stands for Ultraviolet Excess Source and often marks probable quasars. Their distances are photographically determined rather than spectroscopically determined so likely have a larger error bar. Most labels are immediately right of the object. When this wasn't possible a line was drawn to the object. Galaxies with names other than those that just give its position (SDSS, MASX, etc.) are shown. Most are IC and NGC numbers. The oddball is GIN. Which simply stands for Galaxy Identification Number. What criterion was used for galaxies to include is unknown to me. NED used it as the primary designation for only one galaxy in the field.

This field may have set a record for the number of galaxies with redshift data. It will be a short-lived record. I'm working on one that will make this one seem lonely by comparison. Also, it may have set a record for galaxies not in NED. Many of the small ones around NGC 6338 aren't even in NED let alone have redshift data, yet several thousand galaxies are shown for my field, just that some of the brighter ones aren't there. I don't know why.

While most of the galaxies are nearby and members of the galaxy cluster some out past 4 billion light-years are to be found with several UvES objects out beyond 10 and even 11 billion light-years.

Edit: This one was researched when I was just starting to look up things in my field. For some reason, I never covered the other NGC or IC galaxies in the image as I would today. For now, I'll just say that NGC 6345 and NGC 6346 were found by Lewis Swift on May 13, 1887. IC 1250 was also found by Lewis Swift but on June 23, 1890. IC 1252, also known as IC 4649 was found twice by Guillaume Bigourdan. He realized it a duplicate but then didn't note this in a way Dreyer realized it was a duplicate causing him to give it a second entry. IC 4650 Bigourdan found IC 4650 on September 6, 1891. This was a day after his duplicate find of IC 4649. I always wonder if such one day differences of objects near each other are due to one being made before midnight and the other after.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=5x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC6338

NGC6339

I've had several twofer images for Arp galaxies, now it is a twofer for Arp-like galaxies. One I imaged intentionally, the other snuck in unannounced.

NGC 6339 is an SBd barred spiral galaxy in Hercules about 2.3 degrees due south of M92. It is about 100 million light-years distant. I put it in my Arp-like category due to the very different arms. The eastern arm that comes off the bar has two nice narrow streams of young blue hot stars and a short segment of a third all running parallel to each other though apparently not connected to the bar. The western arm is a single rather diffuse arm consisting of much older, longer lived stars though it too has an outer region of super hot blue stars. The bar itself seems unsymmetrical assuming the brightest knot is the core. If so most of the bar is east of the core. A very odd situation. It appears to have a very red companion well off the northern arm to the northeast. This near edge on spiral has a dust lane same as a normal blue spiral seen edge on. It is MCG +07-35-062. Like nearly all the thousand+ galaxies in this image, it has no redshift data. Is it a true companion or just a foreground or background galaxy? I found nothing useful on this. NGC 6339 was discovered by Lewis Swift on April 21, 1887.

Then serendipity struck:
I was about to call this one as not as interesting as I thought but then upon processing the image CGCG 225-097 at 380 million light-years got my attention at the bottom of the image. It has one heck of an odd plume running mostly north-south at a steep angle to the disk of the galaxy. This too would seem to be a worthy Arp galaxy. Is this a polar ring galaxy in the making? If so where's the material feeding the ring coming from? I found no papers on this oddball of a galaxy. Looks to be a spindle galaxy with an odd plume. Or is it another galaxy hiding behind the galaxy's disk? NED shows it as being only one galaxy, however. Anyone know of any papers on this strange object?

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

Related Designations for NGC6339