UGC03422

UGC 3422 and UGC 3426 are a rather odd couple of galaxies in central Camelopardalis. Redshift puts them about 190 million light-years from us. Tully Fisher measurements for UGC 3422 disagree saying it is 275 million light-years from us. This is a large discrepancy. If the closer distance is adopted the galaxy is 165,000 light-years across. This is unusually large for a spiral. Moving it to 275 million light-years makes it 240,000 light-years across. I can't buy that from the looks of this galaxy. Besides, it shares about the same redshift as UGC 3426 which has a Tully Fisher distance of 210 million light-years which is a good agreement. Using the closer distance that galaxy is nearly as large at 125 million light-years if you count the very faint extended halo I see on the FITS that didn't make it through processing. UGC 3322 is SAB(RS)b and 3326 as S0:. The : means there's some uncertainty. It is a Seyfert 2 galaxy so has an active nucleus.

I've identified every galaxy NED had in its database that is in the image. Many of the 2MASS galaxies had no distance data. I need to explain a few things. BLAGN stands for Broad Line Active Galactic Nucleus. Most with that designation have very large redshifts that put them over 9 billion light-years from us. That is the realm of quasars. All are listed primarily as X-ray sources and as an afterthought as a galaxy. Two are very faint and may not survive JPG compression. The rest are quite obvious. Normally I'd not see a galaxy at these distances and those bright enough for me to measure their PSF look like stars and thus quasars to me. I'd consider them a quasar candidate at least. Another designation is NELG (Narrow-Emission-Line Galaxy) which does appear to really be a galaxy lying within my range for galaxies and having the PSF (Point Spread Function) of a typical 3 billion light-year distant galaxy. Lastly, there is one classed as BLLAC which stand for BL Lac Object. These are yet another type of galaxy with an active nucleus that tend to have wide variations in brightness over short periods so were initially thought to be variable stars since no galaxy can vary rapidly. But a very active nucleus that has a jet pointing right at us can vary that fast and that's likely what these are. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BL_Lac_object for more details. NED considers them quasars.

That brings us to two 2MASS objects that I find highly questionable so they are noted with a question mark on the annotated image. Both have a PSF exactly like stars around them. So either they are stars or some sort of galaxy with a very active core and I'm seeing only the point source of this core. I prefer that they are really just stars. There are many IR stars in the 2MASS catalog. Some in this image, the star just 3" NW of BZB J0613+7107, the BL Lac object, is in the 2MASS catalog for example. With so many point sources that are AGNs of one type or another it wouldn't surprise me if these are just misidentified stars. They are noted with a ? in the annotated image. One in the upper right corner the other the lower right corner.

Being so far north this field isn't covered by the Sloan Survey or other popular surveys so many of the identifications come from the BCC2007 catalog. It is the 2007 edition of the Barcons, Carrera, Ceballos catalog of galaxies, stars, galaxy clusters, Quasars and X-ray sources. BZB stands for the BlaZar BLLAC objects catalog of quasars.

This image suffered from severely distorted stars due to horrid seeing, especially on the color frames. I had to do a lot of work to make the stars sort of presentable. This may also be why some of the 2MASS objects seem identical to stars as mentioned above. It seems I'm processing data I probably should have retaken under better conditions the next year. So far things haven't shown a great deal of improvement but for rare nights.

The pair was suggested to me by Sakib Rasool

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

Related Designations for UGC03422

UGC03697

UGC 3697/FGC 601 is commonly known as the Integral Sign Galaxy. Oddly, Arp had 6 galaxies in his category for integral sign shaped galaxies but omitted this one. To most observers UGC 3697 better fits the category than any Arp included. Why he omitted it is unknown. He included many very well known galaxies including 11 entries for Messier galaxies so apparently being well known didn't prevent it from being an entry. Maybe because it was well known for that trait? It's been a mystery to me.

I had this one on my to-do list twice but couldn't reach it due to my Polaris trees until recently. It was on both for being distorted and for being in the Flat Galaxy catalog. It's the size of the central bulge compared to the length of the disk that qualifies a galaxy for the FGC catalog so the warping of it is ignored. Since it's bulge is less than 12.5% of its length it qualifies warped or not. In fact it has little discernible bulge in my image. It is one of a trio of galaxies known as WBL 132. They form a chain starting with UGC 3697 and going southeast to UGC 3714 and ending with the tiny (in angular size) KUG 0707+717. With no redshift for the latter I can't say if it is physically related or not. I doubt it is.

The first two are both about 140 million light-years distant by redshift and both are distorted looking. The disk of the Integral Sign Galaxy has been warped into about the shape of that mathematical sign with bright star knots, especially at the western end. UGC 3714 is a face on spiral with a huge outer halo normally not seen in such otherwise rather normal galaxies. It appears the halo is spherical as the spiral features seem partly hidden by the "fog" of the halo stars giving it an indistinct spiral appearance. NED classes it as S? pec. Looks pretty much like Sab or Sb to me. Not sure why the ? though the pec is likely due to the large apparently spherical halo. Film images of it show only hints of its spiral structure so might be why it couldn't be classed further. The Integral Sign Galaxy is classed as Sd: Pec. Obviously for its warped disk. It is quite likely the distortions of these two are due, at least in part, to interaction between them in the recent past.

The third member of the group, KUG 0707+717, has little info at NED. They class it as simply Spiral. It appears to be near edge on though there's a hint of detail. It too seems to have a halo about it though much smaller than that of UGC 3714.

West southwest from UGC 3714 is a blue irregular galaxy. NED omits it entirely. Is it naturally this way or did it interact with one or more of the WBL 132 members? I suspect if seen more closely it would be quite an interesting galaxy. The little edge on spiral west of UGC 3714 is 2MASX J07120524+7145290. There's little else on it however.

On the west edge of the frame are some galaxies at 1.34-1.35 billion light-years. These are likely outlying members of ABELL 565 which NED lists at 1.36 billion light-years. The core is 12 minutes beyond the right edge of the middle of the image.

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

Related Designations for UGC03697

UGC03974

UGC 03974 is a low surface brightness dwarf galaxy in southeastern Gemini. There is much confusion over its distance. Papers seem to all disagree with each other and give reasons why the other guy's distance is likely wrong. Redshift puts it about 22 million light-years away. At such close range, redshift is often a poor distance indicator. NED sites 5 estimates using other methods that range from 6.85 to 27.4 million light-years. I'm inclined to use the more distant estimates even though the distance to M81 is much closer as the closer ones are close enough I should be resolving stars in the galaxy and I can't come close to it. Star clusters do look fuzzy indicating it isn't really distant but something over 22 million light-years seems reasonable. This galaxy has been imaged by the HST which easily resolves it into stars but does so again at a level common for a distance of about 25 to 30 million light-years from the HST images I've looked at. Papers indicate the galaxy had a starburst level of star formation but that is now over so the really hot, bright stars have died leaving only the dimmer blue stars to give it its blue color. Putting all this together I still vote for the 25 to 30 million light-year value. Assuming it is 27 million light-years distant I measure its long diameter at 316" of arc which translates to 41,000 light-years. Rather large to be considered a dwarf. Radio observations show a rather large amount of nonionized hydrogen which means it could generate a lot more stars if that gas is cool enough but that doesn't seem to be happening.

It does have a companion galaxy, CGCG 087-033, also irregular but much smaller with the same redshift. Unfortunately, it is out of my frame to the southeast. There was no way I could get them into one frame without rotating the camera. It was -35°C the night I took this and without a rotator, there was no way I was going out to the observatory to do that. Even with gloves handling a massive aluminum object the size of the camera and working with the small Allen wrenches needed was impossible for this old guy. I stayed in my chair in front of the fire and said the heck with its companion.

There's little information on the extragalactic objects in this part of the sky. Only a quasar and a galaxy cluster had redshift values. I'd not have prepared an annotated image but there were three asteroids in the image, one 20.9 so very faint. This image combines 6 frames rather than my usual 4. That dims asteroids more than usual so picking one up that faint in a mean stack reduces the brightness of the asteroid against the sky by a factor of 6 rather than 4. The detail on the asteroids is in the annotated image.

Those wanting to know more about this galaxy and its companion can find a lot at this PDF article:
http://core.kmi.open.ac.uk/download/pdf/1636653.pdf Hip waders may be required as it gets a bit deep. It also decides the galaxies are about half as distant as I have which would make it dwarf size.

I've included a false color HST image which is a super quick process of one red frame (606nm) mapped to blue and one rather deep infrared frame (814nm) mapped to red. Since the blue frame picks up the red part of the spectrum including the H alpha line the few H alpha regions in the galaxy show as blue in the HST image. That was the best I could do with only those two frames from the Wide Field Camera to work with.

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

Related Designations for UGC03974

UGC04115

UGC 04115 is a blue dwarf galaxy about 26 million light-years distant in far western Cancer just north of the Canis Minor/Gemini border. There's a rather wide variation in non-redshift distance measurements for this one though most papers consider most of them to be the minimum value. Only one was greater than this concept of minimum value and it says it is 25 million light-years distant which is virtually the same as the redshift measurement. At this distance, redshift isn't considered reliable but it appears, in this case, it is about as good as we are going to get.

NED classifies it as IAm. It is considered resolvable into stars though I wasn't able to resolve any. The HST has taken some frames around this galaxy that catch some of it with full resolution indicating it is close by, maybe closer than the 25-6 million light-year estimate though usually in that case I see a few stars. In this case, only star clusters are showing up rather than individual stars. In the HST partial frames they were rather evenly dim so likely below my magnitude limit for this image which is about 22.5 as the sky was unusually bright the night I took this. Though that's pretty much the norm for this winter's skies Lots of red airglow. Usually green dominates but when red is stronger then it is also much brighter, unfortunately. Seeing, however, was better than normal for this winter. That though wasn't sufficient for me to pull out any stars.

The image has 6 asteroids I was able to find which are detailed in the annotated image. Per the Minor Planet Center 2014 AZ30 was predicted for the field but then they note "Direct recovery using small-field telescope probably impractical." So it is lost and it likely wasn't anywhere in my quite small FOV for finding lost asteroids. Two of the asteroids nearly occulted stars so will be hard to see in the glare of the star.

To recap my notation for galaxy clusters and their bright cluster galaxy a "p" after the look back distance indicates it is photographic rather than the more reliable spectroscopic determination. If there's a second value that is for the bright cluster galaxy when it is different from that of the cluster. In one case there was no distance for the bright cluster galaxy and that's noted with "na" for its distance.

Galaxies and quasars identified only by its position are noted only with a G or Q (QC if its quasar status is not yet confirmed leaving it still a quasar candidate). Interestingly the only confirmed quasar is closer than the most distant galaxy. Both are in the upper right corner.

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

Related Designations for UGC04115

UGC04261

UGC 4261 is a mess in southern Lynx about 300 million light-years away. It consists of three rather bright blobs with plumes and loops indicating this is a merger in progress. One paper from 1994 http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/bib_query?1994A%26A...291...57R says it is likely forming a ring galaxy through a merger. I'd put it on the to-do list for a couple hundred million years from now but I doubt that would be productive.

Sloan gives it two designations SDSS J081056.60+364942.6 and SDSS J081056.19+364941.3 besides one matching the position of UGC 4261 in the UGC catalog, SDSS J081056.11+364945.4. Oddly NED doesn't consider any as "Part of Galaxy" which I find odd. Most sources agree it is at least two merging galaxies.

As mentioned the Sloan survey gives it three different positions. One is for the center of the blob, a bit east of the three bright parts. The another is the lower of the three bright parts while the NED position for UGC 4261 is the middle blob of the three. Only the center blob has a spectral redshift measurement that I find. (Since I wrote this a Friend of a Friend redshift for the lower blue blob has been added to NED giving it an insignificantly less redshift.) The third Sloan position is the upper bright blob. The Sloan image shows the middle blob much redder than the blue upper and lower blobs. My color data without IR and UV that Sloan includes mapped to visual colors shows the middle one slightly red with the other two slightly blue but the difference is small. I barely see it with my old eyes. With three blobs could it be three merging galaxies? I've not seen that suggested. If you look at the high resolution Sloan image the lower blob is made up of several smaller, overlapping blobs. Unfortunately, this one isn't in the Hubble Legacy Archive. I'd love to see what the HST shows for this one! I've included the Sloan image at 0.198" per pixel which shows the main eastern loop and the western "jet" to be made up of individual star clouds or star clusters. I think it likely that the western "jet" is really a loop like the eastern one just seen edge on. Purely my speculation of course. Note there is a faint fuzzy round plume at the end of this southwestern "jet". I needed more time to bring it out than the skies allowed. Though I hadn't realized it was there or would have tried harder to find more time.

There are no other galaxies in the image at 300 million light-years which would make even a two galaxy merger seem unlikely in such an uncrowded part of the sky. There are four galaxies with a redshift putting them about 415 million light-years away. Due to rounding, they are listed at 0.41 and 0.42 billion light-years though they are in closer agreement than that indicates. There are many galaxies without redshift data in the image. Two appear to be an interacting pair in the southwestern corner of the image and are labeled but show "na" for a redshift look back time as that wasn't available. Another is seen through the edge on disk of a galaxy with redshift data. I doubt they are related but annotated the little guy anyway.

Above UGC 4261, halfway to the top of the frame is an area that appears to be a scattered galaxy cluster. NED lists these points as galaxies but without redshift data but for one a bit off the eastern (left) end which has a look back time of 4.93 billion years. Is this a cluster and is this galaxy a member? NED shows now cluster in the area but for one I have marked well to the east with 9 members, 4 of which are in a tight triangle shaped area with a photographically determined look back time of 4.31 billion years.

Two rather bright asteroids appear in the image as well. Since the color data was taken a different night the color trails they'd normally leave at this brightness aren't seen. Details are on the annotated image.

When I went to make the annotated image I found something I've never seen at NED. Several dozen stars with redshifts that of a quasar. Obviously, that can't be. NED lists them two different ways. Some as just stars as I mention which they go on to show as either Candidate QSOs or Rejected Candidate QSOs. If rejected there's a problem with the redshift. In all cases, the redshift was photographically determined. This is usually reliable but if something between us and the star is absorbing certain frequencies it could mislead this type of determination. Is that happening here? I find nothing on it. The others are listed both as stars and as UvS for Ultraviolet Source as found by the GALEX Space Telescope. All of these are shown also as Candidate QSOs much as UvES objects I've annotated before though those were listed first as UvES then as stars while these are stars first. I suppose this means NED is a bit doubtful about them being QSOs. Again I find nothing to support my guess. In any case, none of the UvS objects were "Rejected Candidate QSOs". I listed some of the non-UvS candidates before running into the first of several rejected ones. There were so many and I was getting a bit leery of them being real QSOs that I stopped annotating them. I did annotate all UvS Candidate QSOs, however, listing them simply as UvS as the full designation would have made the annotation messier. The "p" after the look back time indicates it and the following z value were photographically determined. I only listed one rejected QSO candidate, the first I found. It is hiding right by a field star that is apparently brighter making it had to see so I drew a line to it. Since this was written I've found many of these star/quasar candidates turn into rejected quasars. I suspect most if not all are just field stars with anomalous spectra.

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

Related Designations for UGC04261

UGC04352

UGC 4352 is either a 2 or 3 galaxy system. NED only lists 2. The UGC sees three. It isn't UGC 4349 to the north as the UGC says of it: "Paired with triple system UGC 4352." There is an odd oval plume-like feature by UGC 4352 NED01. That isn't it. UGC 4352 NED02 has an obvious orange core and a bright blue region to its east. Also, there's a near star-like object to the northwest of the core (UGC 04352b and part of the galaxy per NED). UGC 04352 has the appearance of a galaxy merger that is or nearly is complete. Any of these could be what the UGC sees.

The UGC also lists a UGC 4352c. Unfortunately, the position has a 3.5" error circle. That could encompass either the blue object I mentioned or the orange core. The position given is between the two but closer to the core. Oh yes, there is no UGC 4352a. I wish they were more definitive. I'm going to go with UGC 4352b being the third member and c being the core of NED02 with a position error. But is b a separate galaxy or part of the galaxy as NED says. Is it the remains of the core of a devoured galaxy? I lean toward the latter.

UGC 04352 NED01 is classed as an Sc spiral and is seen edge-on. It appears somewhat warped. I didn't resolve a dust lane. UGC 04352 NED02 is classed as Sa. I'd tack a peculiar onto to that considering that odd radial red dust lane. Or is that dust in the plane of UGC 4352 NED01? While the redshift of UGC 4352NED01 is greater than that of the companion it does appear to lie in front of it. At least I see no obscuring from the stars in the disk of the companion I'd expect if it were behind the companion galaxy. I doubt the dust is related to the edge on but it is odd how it lies in the same plane. This is one I wish Hubble would take a look at! Unfortunately, I found nothing at the HST Legacy site.

Very few other galaxies are even identified, far fewer with redshift data. Even though the Sloan survey covered this field NED has little on it. I'd really like to know about the odd object(s) south-southeast of UGC 4352. Unfortunately, it isn't listed. I've marked it with a question mark. There appears to be a faint plume to the west from the north end. Is it two galaxies in collision? Just too far away to tell much. The Sloan image doesn't appear to pick up the plume. It's seen in all subframes. I suppose it could be a reflection but not like any I've seen before so think it real. I sometimes pick up plumes the SDSS doesn't. This may be one.

This one was suggested to me by Sakib Rasool.

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

Related Designations for UGC04352

UGC04596

UGC 4596 is an interesting ring galaxy in Cancer about 1.6 degrees east of M44, the Beehive cluster. It is about 440 million light-years from our galaxy. The outer ring is quite large, about 160,000 light-years across. NED Classifies it as (R)SA(r)0+. The gap between the inner disk and the ring appears void but has a distinctly red color indicating there are old stars there, just that they are too faint to be easily seen. Most ring galaxies of this type lie at great distances making it impossible for me to pick up detail in the ring. This one is close enough that some detail is seen. I wish I knew what causes this form of a spiral but unfortunately, I found no papers on this galaxy so have nothing more I can tell you about it. Some say it is due to a precise collision though examples don't quite fit ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kxk62PNHlc ). Others say it is an accretion event ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_galaxy ). It does appear to have a companion galaxy, LEDA 1602485, to the northeast with a similar redshift. It is about half the diameter of UGC 4596 at 73,000 light-years. Still a respectable size for a spiral galaxy. NED gives no attempt to classify it or any other galaxy in the field. I've annotated all with redshift data at NED.

The field contains two candidate quasars that appear quite likely to be true quasars just waiting for verification. They are noted as QC in the annotated image. There is also one confirmed quasar noted as always by Q.

The field also contains 3 asteroids. Their information is shown in the annotated image.

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

Related Designations for UGC04596

UGC04671

UGC 4671 and NGC 2692 are a pair of very different galaxies in northwestern Ursa Major just above its front paws. Redshift puts them about 190 million light-years distant. UGC 4671 is classed simply as S? while its much redder companion is listed as SBab:. NGC 2692 being a rather normal red barred spiral with little to no recent star formation is a rather dull partner but a nice color contrast to the far more interesting UGC 4671. This is a tight blue spiral in the center surrounded by a large, disk with only hints of spiral structure. While NED lists several galaxies seen right through this disk it omits the most interesting one. The others are very small and star-like but the one NED omits appears to be a distant, near edge on spiral. It has a normal left (east) side and a reddish core but is missing most of the western (right) side. I doubt that it is really missing. Just that it is behind UGC 4671 and the western half of the galaxy is mostly obscured by dust and gas in the denser core region of UGC 4671.

Oddly the literature has little to say on this. The only paper I found with anything on it was published in 1997 and says: "If the sharp linear feature in UGC 4671 is of tidal origin it is difficult to see how it connects with the main galaxy. Further apart from this feature there are only modest signs of disturbance of the H I disk of UGC 4671. The feature is hence probably best explained as an edge on dwarf galaxy seen in projection against the disk of UGC 4671. Note that the velocity field in the region of this feature is consistent with this interpretation." To me, the galaxy appears a normal size, not a dwarf. I can't tell for sure but the paper sounds a bit like it is assuming the galaxy is in front of UGC 4671. That would explain calling it a dwarf. Maybe the illusion of an off-center core for it added to the problem. The photo in the paper really doesn't resolve the core as it loses it in the glare of the center region of UGC 4671. I do wish UGC 4671 were closer as it looks like it has a lot of fascinating detail just asking for a better view.

I found nothing indicating UGC 4671 and NGC 2692 were interacting. The large, low luminosity disk of UGC 4671 shows some hints of plumes and tidal distortions at the edges, especially on the eastern side. This could be from it digesting a small companion in the past. Otherwise I don't see much around it that could have interacted with it long ago. NGC 2692 was discovered by William Herschel on March 17, 1790. It isn't in either of the H400 observing programs.

The annotated image has something to annotate for a change. As usual, distance in billions of light-years based on NED's 5 years WMAP calculator is shown after the object designation. Larger objects are noted by catalog name while the rest are noted by type, G for a galaxy, GC for a galaxy cluster, Q for quasar and UvES for quasar candidates. All that NED has redshift data for are noted. A "p" after the distance indicates it was determined photographically by how its intensity varies in different filters rather than spectroscopically. This isn't quite as accurate but usually in the ballpark. The location of galaxy clusters is noted at the position of the big cluster galaxy that anchors the cluster. The difference in distance estimates is likely due to that of the cluster being made photographically while the galaxy is usually done spectroscopically. I suspect the big cluster galaxies distance estimate is the more accurate one.

One fuzzy galaxy southeast of NGC 2692 is not in NED at all. This happens rather regularly. It and another faint fuzzy galaxy to its southeast appear likely nearby low luminosity dwarf galaxies. While the latter is in NED it has nothing on it to settle the issue, however.

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

Related Designations for UGC04671

UGC04879

UGC 4879 is a very lonely irregular dwarf galaxy on the very edge of the local group. We see it in western Ursa Major above its front legs. NED puts it at a distance of 4 million light-years by redshift and 4.2 million by non-redshift measurements. Modern papers I found say 4.5 million while the HST site agrees with NED at 4 million. Even rather close our distance estimates vary by more than 10%. It is a dwarf galaxy easily resolved by the HST but not by me on the below average seeing night I took it. Several star clusters in the galaxy appear as stars in my image. The galaxy itself is mottled but not resolved. Its nearest neighbor, Leo A is 2.3 million light-years from it. For this reason, it likely hasn't interacted with another galaxy for many billions of years. It shows evidence of star formation for the first 4 billion years of its existence then little or none for the next 9 billion years. That leaves only a few hundred million years for it to have formed the blue stars that so dominate my image. One paper said it has no dust or gas left. If correct star formation has come to a halt in this galaxy again.

It was imaged by the HST. I'll save my fingers by sending you to their link. https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1623a/ It was imaged by the HST. I'll save my fingers by sending you to their link. https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1623a/ That image has south up while mine is north at the top.

Two other UGC galaxies are in the image. UGC 04906 was also on my to-do list but as a flat galaxy under the designation of 2MFGC 07220. It is 110 million light-years distant and seen rather close to edge-on. Its core is a narrow line AGN meaning it is quite active. It is classified as an Sa galaxy. Below it is UGC 04913. It is classified as Sc (f) and is about the same distance as UGC 04906. They are likely members of their own local group.

Toward the upper right corner is ASK 089514.0. It is classified as Sm and has a redshift that puts it 350 million light-years distant. It seems to be a sloshed galaxy in that most of the disk, bright enough to be seen in any image of it I found (not many) lies to the west of its nucleus. Very few stars are visible in what should be its eastern half. I found no attempt to explain this. Usually, it is caused by interaction with another galaxy. One possible culprit is NGC 26000 out of my field to the west. It has a redshift distance of 340 million light-years. I see no sign of distortion in the POSS images of it but it is likely much more massive than ASK 089514.0. This mass difference may allow it to disturb ASK 089514.0 without harming itself. It's a featureless S0-: galaxy.

A large galaxy group is marked above and right of UGC 04913. It is anchored by ASK 089787.0. NED gives a membership count of 35 members but no size. Many galaxies about this distance can be found across the image. A second cluster at about the same distance with 23 members is at the top of the image. Are these related? I have to think so. On the right edge above the centerline are three galaxies at a distance of 1.28 billion light-years. A search within 30 minutes of this trio turned up nothing at NED with a redshift distance similar to these three.

While I see an asteroid in the HST image none were seen in any of my frames. Most of the galaxies with redshift data I was able to label lie in a diagonal path from the lower left to upper right. I've noticed many times my annotation runs in a path of some direction across the image. Since they lie at many different distances I find this odd. It might be due to how the fields to get redshift data for are picked. Maybe they are just an isolated group of three galaxies almost as lonely as UGC 4879.

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

Related Designations for UGC04879

UGC04892

This field is located in Lynx just under the front foot of Ursa Major. The main galaxies are about 370 million light-years distant.

UGC 04892 is a very messed up mess. Most sources consider it a merging pair of galaxies. One was a disk galaxy oriented east to west and rather red in color. The other the blue blob below the bright core of the first galaxy. I was surprised that the condensation to the west (left) wasn't mentioned. Is it a third galaxy? It's not referenced at NED or SIMBAD. Yet a star cloud in UGC 4919 to the lower right of its core is listed in NED as a separate galaxy. But no mention of the more obvious blob on the right side of UGC 04892. The best paper I found on this object can be found here: https://ir.stonybrook.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11401/69840/ASLv29i3final.pdf?sequence=2

To the north of UGC 4892 is a pair of galaxies listed as one pair in some catalogs. I've used the MCG designations which consider them separately. The southwestern one has a bright companion, SDSS J091646.54+454845.1. I find no redshift value for it. Most likely they are related though maybe not interacting. The northwestern member is a strange spiral with one obvious arm. Is this odd arm the result of interaction with the other galaxy or galaxies? Also, NED indicates the condensation in the southeastern galaxy to the upper left of the core is a separate galaxy. As the galaxy has several blue condensations to the southwest I assume this one is also just a star cloud in the galaxy.

The obvious galaxy to the east (left) of this pair, hiding behind a bright star is KIG 0314:[VOV207]50. That's the only designation NED has for it. It is in the extended PGC as PGC 2270647 according to other sources. I found no redshift data for this galaxy.

To the lower left is The nice face on spiral UGC 04919. All of these with redshift values are all at 370 million light-years so part of a group. A couple of others at this distance can be found further east in the image as well. A galaxy cluster at about 3.7 billion light-years is in the lower center of the image. Many other very distant galaxies can be found throughout the image, one beyond 6 billion light-years. Some NED lists as being in the Alhambra catalog. That stands for the Advance Large Homogeneous Area Medium Band Redshift Astronomical (survey). Or else an ancient Arabic fortress turned Ferdinand and Isabella's castle when Columbus came calling for funds. I suppose some Spanish astronomer stayed up nights working on this name.

While my nights have been awful for months this was one of the very good nights of the year. While the temperature was near -40C the often present ice crystals in the air were absent so the sky was darker than normal when we have such temperatures. Unfortunately, I had a bright, nearly full moon illuminating a snow-covered lake until about 3 a.m. I couldn't start until the moon was nearly down. This was taken just before dawn began. Very frustrating when the night is so good to have to wait for the moon to set.

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

Related Designations for UGC04892