SH2-80

Sh2-80 goes by so many designations I don't know which to use (SIMBAD lists 30!). But since I've been imaging some small Sharpless objects I'll use that. It is an 11th magnitude Wolf Rayet star, WR 124 (Merrill's Star, for Paul W. Merrill who specialized in spectroscopy of strange stars -- he also has a lunar crater named for him) surrounded by a nitrogen rich bubble. Some catalogs, well many, consider it a planetary nebula but it is really a Wolf Rayet bubble much like NGC 6888, the Crescent Nebula, in Cygnus. Thor's Helmet is another such bubble. The star is classed as spectral type WN 7 or 8 depending on who you listen to. The N means it is nitrogen rich, the 7 and or 8 means the NIII line is stronger than the NIV line. NIV is weaker in WN8 than WN7 in case you were wondering.

I can't find much on this guy, no distance estimate so no size estimate, no age info etc. Just a ton of names for the star and nebula, many being incorrect PN designations such as M 1-67 and G050.1+03.3.

Last fall Bill W posted a nice shot of it. At the time I thought I'd not imaged it. It has been on my list for years as Merrill's Star. Turns out this was taken the end of August but under the Sharpless name. My brain failed to connect the two. After seeing how much time Bill put into his shot I was doubtful I'd get it, but it came through very nicely with only 40 minutes of luminosity data.

Seeing was poor this night. No H alpha was used. I had several nasty satellites go through the color data and one in the luminosity data. With only 4 frames noise rejection didn't work well, my algorithm needs at least 6 to be of lower noise than a simple add or average combine. So it was left in rather than clone out a bunch of stars along with the satellite. I did remove the color ones as they didn't harm many stars. Just too many stars to clone it out of the L image. This bubble must not contain any OIII emission. That falls partly in my green and blue filters which overlap a tad at the OIII line. Yet the green filter showed no hint of the nebula while the blue showed the right intensity for H beta emission without any OIII contribution. Maybe someone with an OIII filter can verify this. Taken August 27, 2009 UTC.

Cropped image enlarged to 0.5" per pixel for those with small dot pitch monitors.

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

Related Designations for SH2-80

SHK001

SHK 1 (Shakhbazian Compact Groups 1) is a really compact galaxy group. It consists of at least 17 small red galaxies, about 1.5 billion light-years distant in southern Ursa Major. Star formation ceased long ago in this group. While NED says 17 members to the group, I count at least 20 in my image and it certainly doesn't go deep enough to catch them all. Halton Arp and Geoffrey Burbidge likened it to a cluster of giant globular clusters. In my image it appears the area between the galaxies is star-filled as it has a reddish glow to it. New studies say in general up to half of all stars exist outside galaxies having been thrown clear by past galaxy collisions. It certainly appears that likely is the case here. Maybe more than half even. This group appears to be part of a much larger group of galaxies as the entire field contains scattered galaxies with a similar redshift. Many far larger than the tiny galaxies that form this tight group. Assuming a distance of 1.5 billion light-years I get a size of the group of 510,000 x 380,000 light-years with the largest galaxy being about 50,000 light-years across. As this is near the limit of my seeing I likely am overstating its size quite a bit. When I account for seeing it shrinks to only 14,500 light-years making it a dwarf galaxy. Likely interactions have thrown stars and dust out of what had been much larger galaxies. Without dust and gas, they can't make new stars so are red and dead galaxies.

Conditions, as has been normal for months, wasn't up to going deep and seeing was poor. There's a ton of faint fuzzies just on the verge of visibility. I need to revisit this field next year if conditions ever improve.

Arp's 1973 paper with Burbidge and Jones is at http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1973PASP...85..423A&data_type=PDF_HIGH&whole_paper=YES&type=PRINTER&filetype=.pdf

Romelia Shakhbazian (1925-2012) was an Armenian astronomer who cataloged compact galaxy groups starting with this one. Some form chains (SHK 166 for example) rather than knots like this one. There are 377 on her list. Some have found their way to my to-do list. Some like SHK 16 have already been posted under different names (that tower of babble again) as SHK 16 is Arp 330. She died in 2012 at age 85.

14" LX 200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for SHK001

SHK166

Shk 166 (Shakhbazian 166) is a chain of galaxies within the much larger galaxy cluster Abell 2247. It is located in Ursa Minor not far from Epsilon. It lies about 520 million light-years away. Since all of the galaxies in my image with redshift data are members of the group and cluster I didn't include distance information. A single flat plane estimate of its distance also comes up with the same distance, a surprisingly good agreement!

Abell 2247 is listed as having 30 to 49 members in a 3.25 degree circle. That's many times the size of my image. I've labeled the center position in the Annotated image. Oddly the galaxy closest to the point has no redshift or other distance data at NED. This far north (81.6 degrees) there has been little study made on galaxies. In fact, the only listing for the blue galaxy above the Abell 2247 label is as an Ultraviolet source not even recognized as a galaxy at NED. I find a lot of interesting objects that lie out of the area of major studies and thus lacking information I'd like to have. A case of too many galaxies for the few grad students available to study them. Especially when there are bigger questions to be worked on than just basic data collection.

Arp had a classification for galaxy chains like this one. But this wasn't one he included. Whether the chain, in this case, is real or just chance alignment due to our position in space is subject to debate. Like most clusters, it appears the galaxies have throttled down star formation so only red an dead galaxies are seen in most clusters, even those, like this, without a major central galaxy to serve as a gravitational center. Even the one spiral is made up of mostly old stars.

Romelia Shakhbazian (1926-2012) was an Armenian astronomer who cataloged compact galaxy groups, mostly not making Hickson's more limited list. Some like this one are dense portions of much larger galaxy clusters. I found only a few interested me enough to make my to-do file. I've already posted Shk 1 and Shk 16. The latter as part of my effort to catch as many of Arp's entries as possible. It is Arp 330. A few more are still on the list but not yet taken. Maybe another year. Romelia died in 2012 at age 85 mostly unheard of by amateurs.

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

Related Designations for SHK166

SHK30

SHK 30 also known as HCG 69 is a group of galaxies in southwestern Pisces. In the HGC it consists of 5 galaxies, A through E. In the SHK list those are 1-5 respectively. But it goes on with 6 through 11 and A through D for 15 galaxies. While all of the HCG galaxies and thus the SHK 1-6 galaxies are about 270 million light-years distant that isn't true of some of the other SHK galaxies. C, for instance, is listed at over 3 billion light-years. Others have no redshift data at NED. The most interesting of these is B which is an obviously disrupted galaxy of some sort. In my image, it appears to be two galaxies but high-resolution images show it to be one disrupted galaxy. The star at the southern end makes it appear comet-like further confusing things. I wish I could find something on it but I can't. Its blue color differs greatly from the other members. That may just be due to star formation caused by the disruption.

Another odd galaxy is NSA 152639. Its distance indicates it could be a group member. In my image, it too is somewhat comet-like with a head at the south end. At first, I suspected it and B might have tangled in the past. But high-resolution images of it show it a double galaxy. The NED position points between the two, a bit closer to the eastern member. It is larger and has an off-center core causing the "comet" head. So it may be an interacting pair of dwarf galaxies.

The two PGC galaxies to the southeast have redshifts that indicate they too could be members of the group, just too far removed to make either compact group catalog.

My system imaged this one on a very poor night. So poor it retook one green and both blue frames. Once I saw the data I realized all data from the first night needed to be retaken but by then it was too far west. Why my system accepted such poor data I don't know. When I ran it through the filter all was rejected but it only three color frames were rejected that night, yet it's the same filter. This isn't the first time that's happened but I thought I knew the problem and corrected it. Apparently not. The red data was one third the strength of the retaken blue and green and due to clouds, the stars were much smaller. This made reconstructing the color difficult. Even eXcalibrator couldn't help much. Color is mostly adjusted to what I am guessing it should be. The luminance data too, is very weak and very noisy, falling a good 2 magnitudes short of normal. A lot of fainter features of these galaxies is lost.

All 5 HGC members are in the IC catalog. They were discovered by Edward Barnard sometime in 1889. His records are too incomplete to pin it down further.

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

Related Designations for SHK30

SSTC2DJ033044.0+303247

Deep in the Perseus Dark Cloud is the cometary reflection nebula GN 03.27.6. It is lit by emission line star LkHa 326. This is also a young stellar object candidate. The cloud is thought to be about 300 parsecs distant or about 1000 light-years. With the field deep in the cloud, it has a dark and dreary appearance, about like the weather I've had trying to image it. Several other young stellar object candidates (Y*Oc) are in the field as are T Tauri stars (TT*). Both would be considered protostars still heated mostly by gravitational collapse rather than their yet to ignite nuclear furnace.

I wasn't able to find much on the field. Seemed many of the papers were behind paywalls. What I did learn about the field is shown in the annotated image.

I don't recall what drew me to put this field on the to-do list. Probably someones posted wide field of this area in which the cloud showed up as a small low-resolution object that peaked my interest. Usually, I note whose image that was but I failed to do so for this one.

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

Related Designations for SSTC2DJ033044.0+303247

STOCK1

Stock 1 is a rather nearby open cluster in Vulpecula. It is about 1000 light-years distant. That means it is very spread out being seen so "close" to us. Most sources put it at about 45 minutes of arc across and my field can only do a bit over 32 horizontally and 22 vertically. I caught as much of it as I could. WEBDA puts its age at about 100 million years. Old enough its most massive stars O and B have died but the A and cooler stars are still very alive and make up the majority of the bright stars in the image. This was my first image after 2 months of horrid weather when I couldn't do a thing. During that time I see some gunk settled on the luminance filter creating some diffractive spikes around the brighter cluster stars. I took several images that likely all have this issue. I need to remove the camera and clean the filter.

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

Related Designations for STOCK1

STOCK12

Stock 12 is an open cluster in Cassiopeia. Webda puts it at 1300 light-years and shows an age of just under 300 million years. It has virtually no reddening other than my smoke may have added. The cluster is classed as IV 2 p. The smoke was nearly gone for this one so the colors were easy to adjust after far too many that were so damaged I have no idea how accurate the color is. This one stands out strongly after weeks of images so low in contrast thanks to the thick smoke. There's little on this cluster. Only one galaxy has redshift data. It is to the upper left of the center of the image and the brightest galaxy in the image it is 2MASX J23362696+5242419 at 480 million light-years. I didn't prepere an annotated image for this one galaxy. Many others are visible thanks to little smoke for a change but they have no data at NED other than position. Most don't even have a magnitude.

I am following in the footsteps of Dan Crowson who took it over a year ago. Except for his much lower resolution image I've not seen it posted here before. I picked a previously imaged cluster because I was after something simple to process after weeks of super nasty smoke. For that it worked nicely.

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

Rick



http://www.mantrapskies.com/image-archive/OTHER/STOCK12/STOCK12L4X10RGB2X10-67.JPG
http://www.mantrapskies.com/image-archive/OTHER/STOCK12/STOCK12L4X10RGB2X10.JPG
http://www.mantrapskies.com/image-archive/OTHER/STOCK12/STOCK12L4X10RGB2X10CROP-67.JPG

Related Designations for STOCK12

TGU H754 P5

TGU H754 P5 is a very obscure reflection nebula in Cassiopeia. Though Simbad calls it a dark nebula which may refer to the dark nebula it is in and the reflection nebula is anonymous. Last fall I learned of it when the Italian amateur Orazi posted a wide angle image of northern Cassiopeia and southern Cepheus. (http://www.starkeeper.it/CassioCefeo.htm -- north to the right) He pointed it out in his very low-resolution image. It was only a faint smudge around an orange star. Still, I decided to add it to my to-do list. I tried for it in both December 2013 and January 2014 but both nights were very low in transparency. Still, by combining the two nights, I managed to get about the same S/N I'd get with half that time on a typical night and was able to put this image together. The reflection nebula turned out to be a lot more interesting, to me at least, than I could have hoped for. It sits in a dark nebula DOBASHI 3524 which may be part of an interstellar medium cloud known as [SS62] 72. The illuminating star is GSC 4284-447 (also written GSC 4284:447 depending on the online catalog used). While its visual magnitude is 10.79 in IR it is over 100 times brighter (K band). It is apparently heavily obscured by the dust cloud it is illuminating. It would be a naked eye star not for the obscuring dust.

To its south is a small dark nebula that is seen in Leo's image as well as mine. South of that is the listed position of the dark nebula LDN 1224 which I've noted on the annotated image. I see nothing in that location. Is the little dark nebula LDN 1244 and its position is just wrong?

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

Related Designations for TGU H754 P5

Thommes Nebula

On November 21, 2009 amateur astronomer Jim Thommes took an image of the rarely imaged LBN 1022. He noticed a small nebula south of LBN 1022 where none was charted nor does any show in the POSS 1 plates though a hint of something is seen in the POSS 2 plates taken mid-sixties. The later IR plate shows a bright round patch south of the nebula's position but nothing at its location other than a faint 20th magnitude star. Jim reported this find to the pros and now, over 2 years later, a preprint of the resulting paper is now available on the net.
http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/users/reipurth/PREPRINTS/ms_V900Mon.pdf

This is very similar to McNeil's nebula though smaller and in a rarely imaged part of the sky in Monoceros. When Jay McNeil announced his find it quickly became known as McNeil's Nebula. Amateurs rushed to get an image of it. Oddly that isn't happening with this suddenly appearing nebula. Likely because it doesn't lie in a spectacular part of the sky. In an effort to remedy this I'm calling it Thommes' Nebula in hopes it will gain traction in the amateur community.

The paper indicates a preliminary distance estimate of 1100 parsecs which is about 3600 light-years.

While the paper refers to the small nebula north of Thommes Nebula as RNO78 this is not quite correct. That refers to a patch of interstellar matter that is dark in visible light unless lit by embedded stars. Its position is a bit west of the visible light nebula which is the reflection nebula GN 06.54.8.02. Technically it is likely part of RNO78 but has its own designation. LBN1022 is the large, mostly H alpha emitting nebula further north. It has a reflection nebula component as well that is blue rather than H alpha red.

I took this image under very poor conditions in 2009 right after Jim announced his discovery mainly for verification purposes and to see it at a larger image scale. Then I forgot about it until cleaning the hard drive. Forgetting entirely about its history I tried to identify his nebula after seeing it in a 2012 image I took of LBN 1022. Since it isn't yet in the formally published literature I came up empty and was getting all excited. Then I found the preprint paper and it all came back to me. Oh well.

Jim's discovery image is at:
http://jthommes.com/Astro/LBN1022.htm

The best image of this one was taken recently with a 32" scope on Mt. Lemmon by Adam Block. It doesn't appear to have changed all that significantly since Jim found it. I hope to try again if the sky will ever cooperate. Hard to compare Adam's super image to my blurry one and tell if it has brightened or not.
http://www.caelumobservatory.com/gallery/lbn1022.shtml

Since the area is so poorly imaged no one has pinned down when it actually appeared that I can determine. Hints can be seen in the POSS 2 red plate taken sometime in the mid 60's (I don't know the exact date) but that could be noise. After that until Jim's image nothing is known. If anyone knows of any images of this field between these dates it could be very helpful in learning when the eruption began. The preprint paper seems surprisingly confident about their conclusions on this object. Most first papers take a far more cautious approach. I don't think I've ever seen such a paper use terms like "bona fide" before. "possible" would be the normal term to use.

For those I hope will image this one the coordinates are 6h 57m 22s -08d 23' 22". I'll get a current image if the sky every cooperates.

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

Related Designations for Thommes Nebula

TOUTATIS

Last night (December 12, 2012 UT or 12-12-12 which my neighbor thinks is a bad omen) the asteroid (4179) Toutatis passed by us at a bit over 4.25 million miles from us when the clouds opened (first time in over a month) for 2 15 minute openings then shut me down again. I had to work fast so the results aren't what I wanted.

For about 13 minutes I had a clear window to grab 20 30 second frames while the Paramount tracked Toutatis using its orbital elements. Then the clouds shut me down for a bit. When they opened again I got 20 more 20 second frames, this time tracking at sidereal rate plus 3 30 second frames in each color. I wanted more but the next red frame was clouded out with the clouds never opening again. I used the first frames to make a mono image with trailing stars showing its motion over 13 minutes (the extra 3 minutes is due to the slow download speed of the camera). I then made an LRGB image using the later data taken tracking stars rather than the asteroid. Then I used the trailed asteroid color frames to determine the RGB values to the asteroid. Rather than 6 colored dashes for the asteroid, I took the round asteroid L frame and colored it with the RGB data and inserted it where it was in the 10th frame tracking at sidereal rate.

Related Designations for TOUTATIS