NGC7331

The Deer Lick Group is anchored by NGC 7331. Normally I show my shots with north up. The disk of the main galaxy NGC 7331 is strongly warped. Seen with north up this warp wasn't as obvious as it is rotated with east up. Our minds prefer to see spiral galaxies flat like a plate rather than on end. So I gave in and rotated it. The main galaxy is NGC 7331. But there's no end of confusion to the NGC objects around this guy. Some sources consider NGC 7325 and 7326 as two double stars below (west) of NGC 7331 and NGC 7327 the elliptical galaxy straight below the right edge of NGC 7331. It is almost hidden by a bright star below it. Other sources consider this to be NGC 7325 with NGC 7326 being the spiral down and to the right of it. But then these sources consider 7327 to be the same object as 7325! There are yet other ways of assigning these three NGC numbers. Now that's confusing. And you thought astronomers had all this figured out.

Things get a bit better with the galaxies above (east) of NGC 7331. From left to right just above the galaxy we have 3 bright and one tiny galaxy all with NGC numbers. First is NGC 7337 a spiral found by George Stoney on September 10, 1849. Next is the pair of stars, NGC 7338 Wilhelm Temple saw as a galaxy in 1882. Next is NGC 7335, a tightly wound spiral somewhat smaller than much looser NGC 7337. William Herschel found it on September 13, 1784. It's not in either H400 program. The even smaller spiral to the right is NGC 7336. It was seen by George Stoney on September 10, 1849. In this group is NGC 7333 but it is only a tight double star, Herman Schultz saw as a galaxy in 1865, so I'll not point it out. Above all this in my photo (further east) is NGC 7340 an elliptical also found by George Stoney on September 10, 1849. It is somewhat above NGC 7337. While SEDS puts the distance at 46 million light-years most now say it is 49 million light-years away based on Hubble Cepheid data. The galaxy may look like a large spiral. It is a spiral, of course, but not large being only about 30,000 light-years across. Ours is a bit over 100,000 light-years across. So it isn't as big as it looks. Below NGC 7331 are two double stars visual astronomers took to be galaxies; NGC 7325 by Herman Schultz on September 20, 1865 and NGC 7326 by Lord Rosse himself on October 7, 1874.

So what warped the disk of this galaxy? Good question. While these other galaxies appear close they aren't. NGC 7335, 37 and 40 are about 240 million light years away! NGC 7336 is 375 million light years away! All far to far away to have caused the warp. The two galaxies below it are also over 300 million light-years away so not involved.

The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on September 5, 1784 and is in the original Herschel 400 observing program. My notes on it with my 10" f/5 pm an average night at powers up to 180x reads: "5'x2' in size. At 180 long and faint. Outer arms become evident at this power. Galaxy appears a bit rounder than the 5x2 size given. I'd put it at 10'x3' (it is 11x3.7 in my image). Dust lane on west side was easy at all powers. A fine object that grows as you study it."

The flare at the lower right is due to a bright star just out of the field of view.

Edit: This is one of my first images. Either the night was really bad or I didn't get it in focus -- or both. It is in dire need of being retaken. I added an annotated version that just lists the galaxies mentioned in the above text and not the many others in the image.

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

Related Designations for NGC7331

NGC7332

NGC 7332 and 7339 are a pair of very different galaxies in Pegasus about 40 million light-years away. NGC 7332 is classed as S0 pec by NED and S0 by the NGC project. NED gives it the peculiar label due to its boxy (some say peanut shaped) core. Except for this odd core, it is a very white featureless edge on spiral mostly devoid of dust and apparently, gas as one note indicates no HII emission is seen coming from the galaxy.

Its companion in space is NGC 7339. It is classed by NED as SAB(s)bc:? and simply Sb-c by the NGC Project. While redshift shows the distance to these two to differ by some 6 million light-years it is most likely they are much closer than that to each other though not interacting nor does it appear they have ever been interacting.

Both galaxies were found by William Herschel on September 19, 1784. NGC 7332 is in the second H400 project. NGC 7339 isn't in either project.

Assuming the distance to both is 40 million light-years, NGC 7332 is a bit less than 48,000 light-years across as seen from our perspective and NGC 7339 a bit smaller at about 42,000 light-years. Rather average size galaxies.

According to NED, there are two other galaxies in the image that are likely members of the group. One is on the far right side of the image and has a redshift putting it about 50 million light-years distant. Even if it isn't a member and is 50 million light-years distant it is a dwarf with a diameter of under 9500 light-years. It is the radio galaxy AGES J223627+234258. AGES is the Arecibo Galaxy Environment Survey in case you were wondering.

The other possible member is an enigma. It is the radio galaxy AGES J223829+235135 to the east (left) of NGC 7339. I've marked it as G 0.049? The annotation is beside what looks like an orange star with a galaxy below it. NED gives a position error of up to 25 seconds of arc centered almost precisely on the orange object. But at 49 million light-years it is only 1000 light-years across. It's very odd for a dwarf galaxy to be that bright, orange and small. Hence the question mark. Even the obvious galaxy below it is only about 2000 light-years across if 49,000 light-years distant. At least it is more typical of a dwarf galaxy but still seems too bright for those that size about our galaxy at least. I can't find any answers to this problem. Still, this small blue blob is the best candidate and is well within the error bars.

Below it is another galaxy with a problem, AGES J223839+234247 at 380 million light-years. Its position is that of a star precisely. The error bar is only a half second of arc for this one and it lands right on the star not the galaxy above it. If the galaxy above the star the one in the catalog it is over 10 times the error bar from the noted position. Still, it's the only galaxy in the area. It too earned a question mark. At 380 million light-years it is a more reasonable 30,000 light-years across.

The only other galaxy in the field with redshift data is at the far left, AGES J223846+234923, also at 380 million light-years and also very blue. It measures out to about 36,000 light-years across. Finally, one that makes sense.

Below (south) NGC 7339 is a quasar at 8.6 billion light-years a z of 1.24 for those wishing to make their own distance calculation rather than NED's 5 year WMAP calculation of light travel time that I used.

Unfortunately, the image suffers from the bad seeing and poor transparency I had much of the last 15+ months.

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

Related Designations for NGC7332

NGC7342

The WBL685 galaxy group is one name for some of these galaxies. Another is the USGC U820 galaxy group or the PPS2 004 galaxy group or the CGCG 514-081 galaxy group or the LDCE 1532 galaxy group or the B2 2236+35:[MLO2002] CLUSTER galaxy cluster. Problem is none seem to include all the galaxies. The last one as a galaxy cluster comes the closest but that name doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. So I'm calling it the NGC 7342-NGC 7345 group as those are the two NGC galaxies in the field. This field is located in Pegasus a bit over a degree north of the far more well known NGC 7331 "Dear Lick Galaxy". In fact, the very top of my field is in Lacerta. Redshift puts the galaxies all about 330 to 400 million light-years distant. This may indicate there are two groups here or more likely just that their relative velocities about a common center of gravity are to blame with the true distance somewhat in the middle.

All the galaxies appear rather red indicating this group has likely interacted sufficiently to strip most of the star-forming dust and gas from them leaving even the spirals red and dead. NGC 7342 is a face on spiral that shows hints of some faint blue areas indicating star formation went on until a few billion years ago. NED classifies it as SBa and 350 million light-years distant. The NGC Project agrees though Seligman adds a question mark.

The other NGC galaxy NGC 7345 has a redshift that puts it most distant at 410 million light-years but one source disagrees and says 340 million light-years. NED and the NGC Project classify this edge on spiral as Sa while Seligman again adds a question mark. This galaxy was also found by Édouard Stephan apparently the same time as NGC 7342. Both galaxies were discovered by Édouard Stephan on September 11, 1872.

For determining sizes to these galaxies I'm going to assume all are at 350 million light-years about a median value for the galaxies in this image with redshift data. Using that NGC 7342 and NGC 7345 are giant spirals at 140,000 light-years. NGC 7345 is even larger if its larger redshift is accurate which I doubt. Assuming all these galaxies are at about the same distance their relative sizes is obvious from the image so I won't compute sizes for the rest.

Of the other galaxies, UGC 12127 and MCG+06-49-060 seem to share a common faint halo. While they look like normal elliptical or spherical galaxies the common halo indicates they are pulling stars from each other. Thus the common halo that appears to surround both is some 270,000 light-years across. Thus this is the largest system in the group. What details I found are listed in the annotated image.

Shortly before I took this image I had the camera off the scope to clean a nasty dust mot from the L filter that was so large it wouldn't flat out. In putting the camera back on I managed to screw up and leave a light leak that put a very steep and strong gradient across the image with a sharp shadow at one edge. Due to the sharp edge, even Gradient eXterminator couldn't fully handle it. Since this was too far west by the time I found the problem I spent many hours trying to recreate the light leak and make a flat to compensate. I finally managed to do so. Then I fixed the light leak. It only happened with a particular orientation of the scope where the blue LED of the Paramount hit the camera just right. Why Software Bisque put a bright blue light on the mount (seen only when using USB port as it is inside and covered by a panel if the serial port is used) I can't fathom. I had duct tape over it but apparently, that came off so it was a combination of errors that created the issue. BTW I found a good use of a cloudy sky. By pointing the scope where this field was when taken on a cloudy night I was able to make a flat that reproduced the gradient. I had to hit the times exactly the same. Fortunately, the pointing accuracy of the mount is within about 10 seconds of arc so by setting the date and time to match and overriding all the screams of The Sky that I shouldn't do that was I able to make the needed flat to compensate. Finally, a useful series of images was taken on a cloudy night! What I won't do to save an image.

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

Related Designations for NGC7342

NGC7348

NGC 7348 is a rather ratty looking galaxy in the neck of Pegasus about 300 to 320 million light-years distant. It is an ultraviolet excess galaxy though I found no studies on why that is the case. Most often it is due to interaction with another galaxy which could explain its rather ratty shape. It is classified as Scd: by NED, Sc by the NGC project and SBc? by Seligman. It was discovered by Albert Marth on August 7, 1864.

In the lower right corner of the image is UGC 12134 a more normal looking spiral also at about 320 million light-years. Now the confusion begins. A note at NED says of it "Not NGC 7353 which is a star." Simbad, however, says it is NGC 7353. Seligman and NED itself say NGC 7353 is a galaxy several minutes of right ascension left of my image. Poss plates certainly show a galaxy at that position. Seligman credits its discovery to Marth yet somehow Marth missed UGC 12134 according to most sources. For now, I'm labeling it with the UGC entry. NED classifies it as Sbc. Other than confusion over its identity I found little on this galaxy.

But there is a real NGC object in the image. NGC 7350 in the upper left corner. Unfortunately, it is just a double star. A third star between the two might have helped to make it look fuzzy to Albert Marth who found it that same August 7th night.

Being in the Zone of Avoidance galaxies in this image are poorly studied. I listed the only ones NED listed but they have no redshift data. Quite a few weren't listed at all. The Deep Survey Field covers this image but its galaxies are mostly well below 24th magnitude so I didn't try to find what few were visible.

14" LX200R @ f/10. L=4x10' RG=2x10' B=4x10' (due to a filter mix-up)

Related Designations for NGC7348

NGC7354DONE

NGC 7354 is located in Cepheus, it is a tiny target. I normally image at 1" per pixel. That wouldn't work for this guy. I had to wait for a rare night of seeing good enough to use 0.5" pixels. So when comparing this image to others keep in mind this was taken at twice the image scale and still it is very small. Getting the needed seeing for any length of time was impossible. It would hold only for a couple minutes then go bad again. I ended up taking several hours worth of 2 minute shots and threw out nearly all of them. 9 made the grade so this is severely underexposed with only 18 minutes. Fortunately, this is a rather bright object. Still, longer exposures would bring out a lot more detail if the seeing had allowed it. Maybe another time. This is a good target for a 10" scope and shows much detail. It was discovered by William Herschel on November 3, 1787. It is in the Herschel II observing program.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=9x2x1 RGB=2x2x2, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC7354DONE

NGC7380

Just across the border into Cepheus and almost into Lacerta is NGC 7380. My Tiron atlas shows it as an open cluster of stars, so do my comments from my Herschel 400 observations as do those of another amateur on this list. Neither of us mentioned the nebula on the east side of the cluster. I've actually centered this shot on the nebula rather than the cluster itself. That's larger than my field of view and totally lost in background stars. Technically the nebula is SH2-142 and is located about 7200 light years distant give or take a few hundreds of trillions of miles.

The open cluster is credited to Caroline Herschel on August 7, 1787. But as mentioned it is in the original H400 program as William recorded it over a year later on November 1, 1788. My entry from that on June 14, 1985 on a typically humid night on the lakeshore using my 10" f/5 at 60x reads: "Large cluster of medium to bright stars with a V of brighter stars over it. Stars are evenly scattered across this oval cluster. I didn't see the "stars fanning outward" as described in the preliminary listing." I apparently saw no hint of the nebulosity in this image though that did need 90 minutes of h alpha data. The human eye is very insensitive to that red color.

Mt image made from a combination of hydrogen alpha light for the luminance image and standard RGB frames for the color data applied to the hydrogen. So you are only seeing the hydrogen in these two clouds. It also contains other gasses. The regions that show somewhat blue likely also contain doubly ionized Oxygen as well as singly ionized hydrogen for instance.

14" LX200R @ f/10 Ha=3x30' RGB=3x10", STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC7380

NGC7385

NGC 7385 is the largest and brightest member of the ZwCl 2247.3+1107 galaxy cluster. This cluster has 162 members over a field 2.3 degrees across that is centered about 5 minutes below the bottom of my image. Yet the major NGC galaxies are located north of the center so that's where I pointed the scope. Zwicky put the cluster in his "Open" category. This means it has no defined center and galaxies are rather evenly scattered showing no grouping toward the center.

I've listed the classification of the individual galaxies if any was given along with the redshift distance in billions of light-years in the annotated image. The one asteroid in the image is detailed in the image as well. Some galaxies are interesting so I'll cover what I found interesting about them.

NGC 7385 is not only the biggest and brightest galaxy in the group it is the most disturbed as well. There is an obvious stream of something going southwest from the galaxy toward PGC 069819 then angling northwest to a point just northeast of NGC 7383 where it turns nearly straight north. It is faint but you should see it. Maxing out the contrast of the Red POSS 2 plate shows it clearly as well. I was thinking it likely IFN which is seen in parts of Pegasus but then found a note to NGC 7385 at NED that said: "Huge radio source extending southwest..." That appears to match this feature indicating it really is a plume. It was discovered by William Herschel on October 18, 1784 but isn't in either H400 program.

This brings me to NGC 7383. A note at NED says it is a non-interacting companion to NGC 7385. What caused the plume. Could NGC 7385 be involved after all or is the plume due to something it ate? It's eastern arm on the side toward NGC 7385 and the plume is longer and more disturbed look than the one on the western side. Could there be a connection to all this? I'm not ready to be certain there's no interaction, just that it may be unlikely. It was discovered by Bindon Stoney on November 27, 1850.

NGC 7386 to the north of NGC 7385 is the second largest galaxy in the cluster. A note at NED says it is a non-interacting companion to NGC 7385. But again, I'm not quite ready to say that's the case. There is a faint stream of material between the two. Fainter than the southwest plume but again visible on the POSS II plate. While the redshift of NGC 7383 and NGC 7385 are virtually the same as that of NGC 7386 is a bit different. NGC 7386 was discovered by William Hershel when he found NGC 7385. It isn't in either H400 program either.

The plumes of NGC 7385 may be due to some galaxy it digested in the past and have nothing to do with these other two galaxies which just happen to be in the path of what it was that NGC 7385 ate. The sudden turn of the plume could be from the galaxy passing by, slowing down and being pulled back to make its final plunge into NGC 7385. I consider this more likely than the other two NGC galaxies being involved but I'd like to see deeper photos of the plume. That might decide the issue.

Another galaxy pair is MCG+02-58-023. The northern member of the pair is NGC 7387. NED has a redshift for NGC 7383 of 7118 for a time travel of 310 million years. NED also lists a redshift for the pair under the MCG+02-58-023 designation of 7756 for a light travel time of 340 million years. I can't explain the discrepancy so have put both measurements on the image under the NGC 7387 label.

One more thing about NGC 7385. Several cD galaxies in major clusters I've image (M49 is an example) have blue galaxies that appear like a bug splat on the "front" of the galaxy. NGC 7385 has one as well on the northeast side. In the case of the others, I've imaged the blue galaxy was a dwarf member of the cluster and well studied. That isn't necessarily the case here. It isn't listed in NED at all! So I have no idea if it too is a dwarf member of the group or a distant background galaxy. I prefer the former but without any data can't back that up in any way other than blue galaxies like it are rarely seen by my scope at distances much greater than that of this cluster. Also, the blue color may indicate interaction with NGC 7385. It is remotely possible it is destined for its next meal or not. There's no way to know with what little information is currently available.

Also in the image are NGC 7387 found by R.J. Mitchel on September 9, 1856; and NGC 7389 and NGC 7380, both found by Bindon Stoney on November 27, 1850.

While there are a lot of faint and not so faint galaxies in the image not found at NED I've listed all with redshift data. Another 10 or so are listed without redshift data with the vast majority not listed at all. This is an area of the sky close enough to the exclusion zone that even though it is well populated most surveys have ignored the area. A few more are listed in The Sky under extended PGC labels that NED is yet to pick up. I didn't list them since you can't go to NED or SIMBAD and look them up nor does The Sky database have redshift data.

This would be a good area for those with a larger field of view than mine to look into that are interested in galaxy clusters.

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

Related Designations for NGC7385

NGC7407

NGC 7407 is a somewhat unsymmetrical spiral galaxy with a huge faint looping arm to the south unlike any to the north. It is part of a group of galaxies about 280 million light-years distant in northern Pegasus. I was intrigued by the weird arm to the south but found nothing much on it but a physical description. Is it due to something that flew by? Could be as it is part of a group of galaxies. Is it due to something it ate in the past? Again possible. I found nothing on this.

What I did find is that it was the home to SN 2003gq. It was a "slow" supernova. Sometimes called a failed supernova. It was a type 1A so involved a white dwarf. Some think these are due to the merger of two white dwarfs of very unequal sizes. In any case, it is long gone and not seen in my image.

I found three galaxy groups in the field that appear to consider this galaxy a group member, at least the distance is correct. NED shows no size for any of the groups, just a member count. Most appear to be out of my frame to the east and maybe north.

While I found little on this galaxy I was looking for it is a neat looking distorted spiral galaxy virtually ignored by the amateur imaging community. That will have to do.

I started taking this one but before I finished the luminance images clouds shut me down. My system apparently considered none usable and retook the entire series. When I went to process it I found they were actually quite usable after all. Why my system said otherwise I can't figure out. Anyway, that explains the 8 luminance subs rather than my usual 4. During the first night, an asteroid came through that can be seen in the image. Its trail shows some brightness variation from the clouds that night. That is small and greatly reduced by the stretch I used. At least it gives me something to mention since I found nothing about the galaxy I was looking for.

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

Related Designations for NGC7407

NGC7419

NGC 7419 is a nice open cluster in Cepheus about 3.75 degrees west southwest of M52. It was discovered by William Herschel in 1787 using his 18.7" reflector. Trying to find information on this cluster was difficult. No two sources agreed on anything. WEBDA says it is 1.38 kpc (4.5kly) distant with an age of 19.2 million years and is reddened by 1.83 magnitudes. The latest paper I found on it says it is 4 kpc (13kly) distant, 14 +/- 2 million years old and has reddening of 1.24 magnitudes. I have no idea who is more correct. The paper studied the high number of Be stars in the cluster. Seems most clusters have more red super giants than Be stars but here the ratios are reversed. The paper lists 5 red super giants but only 2 are identified on its chart identifying these stars. The paper lists 10 Be stars, all of which are on the chart. I've labeled both on the cropped annotated image. A red asterisk to the upper right of the star marks the two red super giants on the charts and a blue B to the right of the star marks the Be stars. I should mention Be means the star is spectral class B (very massive) and has strong emission lines, usually H alpha, in its spectrum.

I was somewhat surprised at the Be stars coming out somewhat red in my image. While the reddening and the H alpha emission will redden Be stars to some extent these seem way too reddened to me. I went back and checked my B2V colors but they seem right on as to non cluster stars. Some of the blue ones in the image are A stars that should be yellower than B stars but are bluer than the Be stars in the cluster. I've labeled an A3 star in the annotated image to show this issue. I found only a couple RGB filtered color images using Google, one was far redder than I came out and one was a rather close match, that by Jim Thommes who is quite careful about his color ( http://www.jthommes.com/Astro/NGC7419.htm ). That leaves me still trying to understand the star colors in this cluster.

After processing and researching this one it kept sounding familiar yet a check of my log showed it had never been taken or processed before. Turns out logs lie if you forget to enter the data. I had taken this one before and met with the same issues. The accident last November knocked specific things from my memory. Certain names, places and events just vanished. Some, not all have returned. This cluster must be one that's still lost as I have no memory of it. But a search shows I did post it on 10-31-2011. This one gives the same colors but under a bit better seeing (rare for this year) so since it is better and I did all the work I'm running it anyway.

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

Related Designations for NGC7419

NGC7423

NGC 7423/Berkeley 57 is an open cluster right in the southeast corner of Cepheus. In fact, a piece of the left edge is in Cassiopeia while the very bottom of the image is in Lacerta. It was discovered by William Herschel on November 1, 1788 but isn't in either of the Herschel 400 programs. Dreyer described it as "very faint, pretty large, irregular figure, extremely mottled but not resolved."

WEBDA says it is 1.4 billion years old so a rather old cluster. Tidal forces often break up clusters before they can get this old yet it seems rather well defined even today. It is 13,500 light-years distant so I'd expect from age and distance. WEBDA says it is reddened by 0.75 magnitudes. Still, it doesn't seem quite as red as I had expected.

Of more interest but even less information is the odd double object to the northeast of the cluster. Western parts are quite red and separated north to south. Southern part seems to have a star-like part and a horizontal nebulous bar. Both fade into a blue blob that appears to surround two stars to the east. Is this a separate object or part of the red object(s). Is the red part two objects or one with a dust band obscuring much of it? SIMBAD identifies a young stellar object as being in the southern part almost in the dust lane like feature, IRAS 22534+5653. NED lists an IR source at the position of the faint star-like object in the northern half 2MASX J22552984+5709244 and the star west of the lower half as another IR source 2MASX J22552796+5709261. Neither NED nor SIMBAD show anything for the blue object that seems to be a jet from the dark lane. Whatever is going on here interests me more than the cluster.

There's only one obvious galaxy in the image, a very red small spherical object southwest of the cluster. It is 2MASX J22541372+5702353 but I have nothing on it, not even a magnitude. I show it to be about 17.7 without calibrating for its red color. It is likely brighter as my sensor has issues with red. NED shows several other galaxies in the image. All I checked were so small and faint they make this one seem big and bright by comparison. None have any helpful data so no annotated image was made.

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

Related Designations for NGC7423