UGC06309

UGC 6309 is a strange galaxy in Ursa Major south of the bowl of the "Big Dipper" portion of the constellation, 140 to 160 million light-years away. It is classed as SB?. It certainly is a barred spiral so that can't be what the question mark is questioning. Maybe it is referring to the odd arm structure that really doesn't fit the a, b, c, d classification system. Also, it has plumes off the northwestern side. Barred spirals often form pseudo ring structures with the arms coming off the ends of the bar overlapping to form a ring though each only covers a bit over 180 degrees. Here things are somewhat screwed up. The northwestern bar forms a ring-like arm but it is distorted beyond the end of the southeastern bar. The arm coming off the southeastern bar is strange indeed not smoothly translating into the ring. It is either short and ends at the ring formed off the other bar or hits that point at right angles and making a sudden 90 degree turn and then overlapping the arm from the northwestern bar which may end up making a full 360 degree ring. Since the two overlap its hard to tell. In any case, the ring is very egg shaped. Then there's the huge rather faint plume going beyond the ring to the northwest. All this would indicate the galaxy has had an interaction with another galaxy. Though except for MRK 1445 and ASK 184885.0 both to the southwest there are no candidates. Being a blue compact galaxy it is possible MRK 1445 may be involved or else UGC 6309 has merged with a small galaxy though no sign of it remains I can detect.

All objects NED listed with redshift values are noted in the annotated image. If identified only by its coordinates I've just labeled it G or Q depending on if it is a galaxy or quasar. One is listed in NED as both so carries both labels. It's PSF on my image is a bit different than that of a star but not quite that of a distant galaxy. I suspect I picked up mostly the point source massive black hole quasar at its core plus some hints of the galaxy it is in resulting in a PSF that isn't quite correct for either at my resolution level.

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

Related Designations for UGC06309

UGC06334

A galaxy with a handle?

As is obvious by now, I like strange galaxies. UGC 6334 certainly is a strange galaxy. The bright portion looks rather normal just with no outer arms you'd expect in a spiral. Instead, it has a ring that is very off-center from the main part of the galaxy. Is it a polar ring? I found nothing saying it was. One paper just says it has an eccentric nucleus. The galaxy is 300 million light-years distant in the constellation of Ursa Major under the back foot of the bear. It is huge with a diameter of about 250,000 light-years. Just south of it is LEDA 4274358 a dwarf disk galaxy at about the same distance. It appears normal, just small at 25,000 light-years in size.

To the west-southwest is LEDA 1841313 also at 300 million light-years and it is distorted. The left side looks normal but the right side has been "cut off" in that it looks shoved in as if it ran into a wall. Obviously, that didn't happen but why the difference? I found nothing on these galaxies.

When a spiral is hit near dead center with a massive dense compact galaxy, often called a "bullet" the result is the spiral becomes a ring with the core pushed to one side of the ring. Could UGC 6334 be something hit by too small or not compact enough galaxy to make the classic ring moving the core to the edge of the ring but not smashed against it? If so, was LEDA 1841313 the bullet that didn't have what it takes to turn UGC 6334 in to a full ring as say Arp 147? I found nothing about this odd galaxy but that comment that it had an eccentric core.

Another distorted galaxy is near the left edge, LEDA 4546575. It appears to be a distorted low surface brightness galaxy with a drawn out plume on the left side. It is 420 million light-years distant so not related to UGC 6334. Still, I have to wonder how it got messed up.

To its southwest is what NED identifies as a 7 member galaxy cluster. I point to the bright cluster galaxy at its heart in the annotated image. Which other galaxies in the area are members of the cluster I don't know. Its photometric redshift (not as accurate as spectroscopic redshift) puts the cluster at 3.8 billion light-years. NED had no distance estimate for the galaxy the annotated image points to.

One lone asteroid put in an appearance. At magnitude 20.3 and under my low transparency skies it is pretty faint. Details are on the annotated image.

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

Related Designations for UGC06334

UGC06433

UGC 06433 is cataloged as a peculiar galaxy. While it resembles a typical irregular galaxy it has plumes not usually seen in irregular galaxies. Also, the starlike objects seen at each end of it are star clouds in the galaxy rather than stars in our galaxy. The entire galaxy, even its core is more blue than red. That would seem to indicate it has very recent new star formation that happened everywhere in the galaxy. I find nothing in my image area that could have caused this. PGC 035127 is at the same distance but seems too small and undisturbed. ASK 521631.0 and UGC 06428 have the same characteristics that rule them out as well. Looking beyond the field NGC 3652 at 100 million light-years comes leaping to the forefront of possibly interacting galaxies. It is a rather "Z" or "N" shaped galaxy also of a stronger than usual blue color. It's only 38 arc minutes from UGC 06433. If I'd planned better I could have mosaiced the two but I didn't frame them right as I wasn't thinking of the two being possibly connected. I find nothing in the literature connecting the two but NGC 3652 is the only possible interacting galaxy I could find. Of course, it could have merged with a small galaxy. I suppose it may not need a cause for the recent star formation but almost always it is due to some outside interaction.

Another possibility is NGC 3665 about 43 minutes north of UGC 06433. It too is mostly blue and at 107 million light-years by redshift a possibility. Though their projected separation is over 1.3 million light-years that puts them closer than we are to M31 with which we will collide in 4 billion or so years. Still, that's a wide separation for recent interaction.

The rest of the field is rather typical with nothing surprising seen. Due to cloud issues, one green frame was unusable. That color is the one to hit if one has to be hit. I don't think having but one green frame hurt the color any.

This field is located by the back leg of Ursa Major. Being so high above the ecliptic it's not surprising no asteroids are in the image.

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

Related Designations for UGC06433

UGC06446

UGC 6446 is a low surface brightness, face on spiral in Ursa Major just under the bowl of the Big Dipper. Redshift puts it about 38 million light-years distant but Tully-Fisher measurements put it at about 51 million light-years. It is sometimes considered part of the Northern M109 Galaxy Group. If so that would favor the 51 million light-year distance so I'll go with that. That would make it about 55,000 light-years across its longest diameter. I'm measuring this diameter at 3.7 arc minutes while NED lists its size as only 1.25 arc minutes. Others say diameters up to 2.8 minutes. Yet I'm quite confident at my measurement. I can't explain the difference.

At its north end is what I take to be a star cloud but NED lists as a separate galaxy, SDSS J112641.92+534633.3. Often these are just star clouds. Sometimes NED indicates this other times it doesn't. Many other knots are listed as separate galaxies in NED. This includes the bright blue star-like knot east (left) of the core). That is listed as SDSS J112643.98+534449.8. Again no distance or other data but it is quite obviously part of the galaxy even if NED doesn't indicate this. I suppose this northern object could go either way. They have little on it and nothing that would help decide this issue. If a separate galaxy as it looks somewhat galaxy like but if so it appears quite distant. But if it happens to be a true interacting companion then that could explain UGC 6446's long drawn out arm that reaches the bright blue star at the south end as well as the faint extended features. I doubt this, however. I was hoping to find something on this but came up empty.

Most of the annotations are basic but one at the far left edge I've shown as */Q/UvS? This star-like object is listed at NED a first a star and then a quasar by the Sloan Survey and then as an Ultraviolet Source by the GALEX satellite. Redshift is by photographic means. While often rather accurate it can be misled in the case of some stars. If correct it is likely a quasar but it might be a very blue star in our galaxy. NED seems to prefer the idea it is just a star in our galaxy. Hence the question mark. Since I wrote this I've watched many with this classification change to "rejected quasar" so I suspect it is just a star that responds to photometric filters as a distant quasar would.

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

Related Designations for UGC06446

UGC06541

MRK 0178 is a very blue nearby irregular galaxy seen in front of the Abell 1314 galaxy cluster. Several sources list it as being a double galaxy and one says triple yet I see only one. There's a field star on top of it that I suppose could be seen as a galaxy as well as a bright blue knot on the southwest side that is far larger than the small ones to the northeast that likely some see as a separate galaxy. I only see one, however. It has a faint extended halo that more than doubles its size. Redshift puts it about 21 million light-years away while non-redshift measurements say it is much closer at 13 million light-years. Depending on which you believe it is 13,400 or 8,300 light-years in size. Either way, it is a dwarf and this counts the faint halo. Using the brighter inner region it is only 6,500 or 4,000 light-years across.

Markarian galaxies have nuclei with more Uv emissions compared to other galaxies. I'm not sure what qualifies as the nucleus of this one, the bright blue blob I suppose. Nearly all Markarian galaxies are very blue and many are dwarf galaxies like this one.

To the northwest is another very blue galaxy that is pretty messed up. While blue, UGC 6538 isn't a Markarian galaxy. It is a rather normal sized spiral of 40,000 light-years in diameter and at over 10 times further away with a redshift distance of 150 million light-years. What messed it up is unknown. I searched for nearly a degree around it and found nothing at its redshift but dwarf galaxies with one exception. Right at the top edge of my image is a small undisturbed galaxy at the right redshift but it is not disturbed in the slightest. It might be the result of a merger. I found nothing on it.

Abell 1314 is completely unrelated as it lies about 4 times further away than UGC 6538 and at least 22 times further than MRK 0178. Its core region lies to in the southeast corner of my image and is anchored by IC 0712 which NED classifies as S? though I see no hint of spiral structure. The cluster is group 0 meaning it has 30 to 49 members. Though there are more than 50 in my image alone so I don't understand the discrepancy. Morphology III which means it has no dominant galaxy though NED seems to indicate that honor goes to IC 0712. It is spread over a circle of 80 minutes of arc so much larger than my field of view which already contains more member galaxies than its group would indicate.

The cluster has three large galaxies that made the IC catalog, IC IC 708, 709 and 712. All were discovered by Lewis Swift on May 11, 1890. IC 708 is sometimes known as the Papillon Galaxy. Why I have no idea. It certainly doesn't look like a butterfly (Papillon is French for butterfly). My wife lived near the town of Papillion, Nebraska and they put a butterfly on their water tower proving Nebraskan's flunked French spelling.

Just west of IC 712 is the strangely warped galaxy [BFW2006] J173.67629+19.07935. To the northeast just west of the bright star (12th magnitude) HD 100597 is a warped looking galaxy. It is nearly lost in the Sloan image. Maybe that's why they and no one else at NED picked it up. I found it totally missing from NED and SIMBAD. I've noted it with a question mark.

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Related Designations for UGC06541

UGC06614

UGC 6614 is one of the largest Giant Low Surface Brightness Galaxies (GLSBG) known. Even at 300 million light-years distance, it is large in my image. I measure it at a bit over 3 minutes across which translates to about 263,000 light-years in diameter. The bright inner ring portion is just over 100,000 light-years across, about the size of the Milky Way Galaxy we live in. It has several probable companions including LEDA 142824 to the upper left and CGCG 097-039 toward the bottom. They are rather typical disk galaxies with a diameter of over 60,000 light-years. They just look like dwarfs in comparison. ASK 629991.0 to the northwest is a dwarf at 17,000 light-years in diameter. Though it is said to house an AGN which seems unusual for a dwarf. The field is near the tail end of Leo.

The only other bright galaxy in the image is UGC 6631 in the upper left corner. It is listed as an Sab spiral. It has a rather odd "black eye" feature in its outer arms. The arm structure is rather odd even without this hole. Again NED had little on it. Its size is rather typical of a spiral at about 55,000 light-years in diameter.

There is another ring galaxy in the image. Like the inner ring of UGC 6614 but smaller in angular size. Is that because it is farther away? I can't say as it has no redshift or other distance data. It is SDSS J113825.27+170326.1 to the lower left of UGC 6614. Unfortunately, NED had very little on it so it is mostly still a mystery. I didn't pick up any faint outer arms like those of UGC 6614 but then if it is much more distant I likely wouldn't without a lot more time spent on it.

The field contains the usual assortment of galaxies though none are closer than 160 million light-years and most are well over a billion light-years distant. Two asteroids are in the image as well. See the Annotated image for details.

At the time I took this data I didn't realize it had these super faint outer arms or I'd have given it more time. It will take a lot more time to do these arms justice.

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

Related Designations for UGC06614

UGC06903

UGC 6903 is a diffuse low surface brightness SB(s)cd galaxy in Virgo. The galaxy has an out of focus look to it with all its features being very soft and fuzzy. I'm used to sharp detail even in low surface brightness galaxies with reasonable seeing as I had but that isn't the case with this galaxy. It is not part of the main Virgo Cluster as it lies some 100 million light-years distant while the core of the cluster is only about 60 million light-years away. The galaxy is about 70,000 light-years across.

There were 4 asteroids in the image, one hiding in front of the galaxy but it fell in a dark lane so was barely visible. Northeast of the galaxy is a galaxy cluster. NED shows its Bright Cluster Galaxy at a different location than the cluster itself. There is what also could be called a Bright Cluster Galaxy at its location but it has no redshift. That of the cluster is photographic but is in close agreement to the spectroscopic redshift for the BCG below it.

I had moved UGC 6903 westward to pick up galaxies to the east then ended up cutting them off on the east border because I didn't move far enough west. I might as well have left it centered.

For newcomers to my posts, I should mention that the annotations show the catalog name of galaxies and other objects when they are not just the objects coordinates in the sky. If NED or some other source has classified the galaxy that is shown next. If sources differ as to classification I use NED's and mention the differing classification in the text. This is followed by the distance based on cosmological redshift in billions of light-years using NED's 5 year WMAP look back time calculator. While its variables are slightly different from the currently accepted values the difference is smaller than the likely error in the calculation as it assumes the object is at rest with respect to the expansion which isn't likely the case. This way I am consistent over the years as the variables used are updated every few years due to new data which would require me to rewrite everything. When non-redshift estimates are available I'll list those in parenthesis after the cosmological redshift distance. When the galaxy is nearby redshift is a poor indicator and I will often only show the non-redshift distance in such cases.

The annotated image contains many galaxies from the GAMA catalog. That stands for the Galaxy and Mass Assembly Survey. You can read about it here: http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/cgi-bin/ex_refcode?refcode=2011MNRAS.413..971D

I had to use this catalog to get names that weren't just positional (usually from the SLOAN survey). My fall back for this had been the ASK, Automatic Spectroscopic K-means-based classification, but that wasn't available for many of the galaxies in this image. For more on this see: http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/714/1/487 . Positional names are lengthy and clutter an image unless there aren't many objects to identify in the image so I usually avoid them when possible. Instead, I use G for galaxies and Q for quasars when positional names are all that are available. UvES is used in this case for candidate quasars that NED lists under this designation. There are several in this image.

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

Related Designations for UGC06903

UGC06912

UGC 6912 and UGC 6931 are two interesting galaxies in Ursa Major about 3 degrees west of the double star M 40. Redshift puts them about 67-70 and 62 million light-years away. The difference is likely smaller than this indicates. They may be related in fact. I put UGC 6912 high to pick up both UGC 6931 and the rather "cute" galaxy cluster WHL J115556.3+575501 west of UGC 6931 at 2 billion light-years. NGC 6912 is classed by NED as S?. It certainly looks disturbed and would seem to deserve a pec label. I found virtually nothing on this one that attempts to explain how it ended up this way. Seems some sort of recent interaction must be involved. Did it involve UGC 6931? Or is it a merger in progress? Or something else?

UGC 6912 is described in the CGPG catalog as: "Distorted blue post-eruptive spiral, exploded core, blue knots on spiral arm." It certainly has several parts. The VV catalog lists three parts, other catalogs add other pieces. Only one had redshift data. NED considers this Sloan object to be a separate galaxy rather than just a bright knot in the galaxy that the other parts are. If true it seems way too blue to be the core of a merging galaxy. UGC 6935 is classed by NED as SBm with strong HII emission. So it is possible but not a requirement that it has been disturbed by something in the past. I found even less on this galaxy in the literature. SIMBAD lists one paper under both of these UGC galaxies that is labeled "The gas content of peculiar galaxies: Strongly interacting systems."

The galaxy cluster WHL J115556.3+575501 at the bottom of my image at 2 billion light-years is listed as having 24 members. Just below it, out of the frame is the core of the galaxy cluster Abell 1415 which is also shown at 2 billion light years. It is listed as 20 minutes in diameter and of class 1 which contains 30 to 49 members. So it appears WHL J115556.3+575501 constitutes a major part of the cluster. It is classed as BM III which means it has no dominant galaxy. A big cluster galaxy isn't necessarily a dominant galaxy. Thus while WHL J115556.3+575501 has a BCG at its location the cluster doesn't seem to cluster around it.

There are two main ways of classifying galaxy clusters. BM as used here and RS. BM I has one dominant galaxy in the center. Abell 2199 is a common example. BM II has a pair of dominant galaxies at its core. Think Coma Cluster. BM III has no central galaxy or galaxies. The RS series is more complex. If there is one core galaxy at its center it is labeled cD and the galaxy is a cD galaxy. B means a binary system. So these are similar to the first two BM classes. But the RS system goes further. L means a line of bright galaxies, C a core of more than 4 bright galaxies, F a flattened distribution (that is the cluster has an even distribution not that it is flat like a piece of paper) and I for irregular with no obvious core region with a blotchy distribution rather than a "flat" one. That would be similar to many BM III clusters including this one. BM is Bautz-Morgan and RS Rood-Sastry. Didn't help much, did it? There are other systems such as Zwicky type which is simply Compact, Medium-Compact and Open. They can be classified by shape: Spherical, Intermediate and Irregular for instance. Many others can be found in the literature.

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

Related Designations for UGC06912

UGC06955

UGC 6955 aka Zwicky 2 is an IB(s)m: galaxy in southeastern Ursa Major about 54 million light-years distant by redshift and 57 million light-years by Tully Fisher estimates. A very good agreement. The de Vaucouleurs "Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies" says of it: "Very low surface brightness. Well resolved. Asymmetric. Foreshortened central part. Smooth bar. Dimensions: 5 arcmin x 1.5 arcmin (Lick 36-inch plate)." I agree with the description but for its size. I trace it to 6 by 1.9 minutes on my FITS luminance image. Using that size and the redshift distance I get a diameter of 94,000 light-years. Rather large for an irregular galaxy, even one with a hint of spiral structure but no defined core. Still, it has a center of old stars with an outer disk of younger blue stars as you'd expect of a spiral. It seems to have some characteristics of both spirals and irregular galaxies. Being nearby and resolvable (not by me) I'd expected to find some images of it but other than survey images I found none. Since the above note says it was taken with the 36" Lick refractor I looked but couldn't find it on the net anyplace.

I found a couple other objects of interest in the field. To the west is ASK 517319.0 and a possible companion SDSS J115747.00+380724.3 on the arm. The apparently single arm continues on to end at a star. I checked the POSS and SDSS survey images and it is a star, not a third galaxy so that it is at the end of the arm is a coincidence of perspective and not real. Without redshift info on the SDSS galaxy, I can't tell if it is a true companion or not. I suspect it is and the cause of the odd arm but found absolutely nothing on it of use.

The other odd object is below UGC 6955 and looks like a double-headed comet. The northern and fainter galaxy is MAPS-NGP O_266_0142329. It is slightly red both as to the core and the "tail" to the east. The lower galaxy is only listed at NED as an Ultraviolet source, not a galaxy with a rather vague position that points to the middle of its tail directly east of the head. It is listed as GALEXASC J115833.05+375752.4 and is very blue as you might expect of an ultraviolet source. The SDSS picked up the northern galaxy but not the Uv Source. I've found this survey to miss blue galaxies so I suppose this isn't too surprising. The odd dual comet tails are hard to explain as due to an interaction which usually sprays stars every which way. I'd love to find an explanation of what is going on here or even if the two are related. But I came up totally skunked. A fascinating mystery.

Everything else in the image is rather ordinary. Again there are a lot of galaxies without redshift data. Galaxy clusters all had only photographic redshift information though sometimes the Bright Cluster Galaxy had a spectroscopic redshift that slightly disagreed with the photographic one for the cluster itself. When that happened both were listed. Most of the time the cluster and galaxy were only identified by their coordinates which were the same and both had the same photographic redshift. When this happened I listed them as GC/C with a p after the redshift for photographic. If the galaxy had a catalog entry other than coordinates that is shown after the detail on the cluster it anchors along with its spectroscopic redshift which is likely more accurate than the photographic one.

The field contained over two dozen quasar candidates and or rejected quasar candidates. NED is listing all as stars but mentioning they are quasar candidates due to photographic redshift determinations. Since the rejected ones still show redshifts impossible for stars yet are stars I didn't bother to try and annotated the candidates NED seems to think aren't likely to prove to be quasars. On the other hand, the quasars shown are listed by NED as quasars with spectroscopic redshifts to back this up but they note they too are still listed as quasar candidates. Since NED has determined they will likely prove to be the real thing that is how I listed them on the annotated image.

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

Related Designations for UGC06955

UGC08496

UGC 08496 is an interacting double galaxy in Canes Venatici 4 degrees northeast of M3 about 230 million light-years distant. The southern galaxy is compact S0 galaxy while the northern one isn't classed at NED nor the UGC that I could find. It appears to be the remains of a spiral while the southern looks like the stripped core of what used to be a spiral. Once fully merged it will likely be an elliptical galaxy.

UGC 08492, the very golden round galaxy is classed by NED as S?. Looks more like an elliptical. It is another hundred million light-years beyond UGC 08496 so unrelated to that group.

The other "pair" of galaxies is VV 326/UGC 08502 at 0.47 million light-years. To me, it is a triple galaxy with VV326a being made up of two galaxies. NED doesn't see it that way, however. They indicate the southern rather obvious spiral is the location of the galaxy. It is quite red in color. Above it is a very blue knot which NED calls "Part of VV 326a". When referencing the 2MASS survey entry for VV 326a they state: "2MASS position is for the northern knot." That would indicate the "knot" is undergoing strong star formation while the red color of the lower "part" doesn't seem to have much as it didn't make the 2MASS survey. To me, they are two separate interacting galaxies. They may be in the process of merging as their common redshift would indicate or their motion is mostly transverse which can't be seen by redshift. Or NED is right and they are part of one galaxy. I suppose the northern "knot" could be a knot in the highly distorted northern arm. Seems a super knot if it is. In fact, it is far brighter than the Sloan image or POSS plates would seem to show it. At first, I thought it might be I caught a supernova but I don't find any listed at that position at David Bishop's supernova pages for 2010 or 2011. The image was taken April 24, 2011. As a check, I took a quick frame of it this year and it is still just as bright so definitely not a supernova. I can't explain why it is so bright compared to the other images.

The galaxy cluster MaxBCG J202.37294+31.32918, due west of UGC 08496 is a puzzle. I've marked the positions of both with two lines for the one entry for the Big Cluster Galaxy and the cluster's different position. Note the name of the cluster gives its position in degrees epoch 2000. That is exactly where the BCG is located rather than the position given for the cluster, if you ignore its name. The galaxy's distance is by spectroscopic measurement while the cluster's distance is photographic. Trust the former to be more accurate. The cluster is also known as ZwCl 1327.1+3134 and that too contains its location however only to the nearest minute of arc in declination and 1.3 arc minutes in right ascension. Too imprecise to help here. (.1 minutes of RA at 31 degrees is about 1.3 arc minutes --multiply 0.1 by 15 x cos(31 degrees)).

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

Related Designations for UGC08496