UGC10407

UGC 10704 is a really messed up blue galaxy in the Abell 2197 galaxy cluster located in western Hercules. This is another one Sakib Rasool pointed me to. Redshift puts it 384 million light-years away with the Abell cluster center about 35 million light-years further away. There are only two notes at NED on the galaxy, one saying it has 5 clumps of HII and another calling it a group of blue galaxies. Not much agreement here! The SDSS lists it under several different galaxy designations but NED has an Essential Note that says these are multiple entries that describe the same object. Again little help. Looking at the SDSS data in NED you find three clumps identified. One is within 2 seconds of arc of the centroid position the UGC uses. The other two are shown on the annotated image. I find it interesting that what appears to be the core as it is more orange than the other parts as well as a detached southwest and a south to southeast part are not listed. If any are a separate galaxy I'd think it the southwestern apparently detached part. Why do I try and look these things up?

Being located on the edge of the Abell 2197 galaxy cluster there are a lot of galaxies in the image. Like some other Hercules galaxy clusters, it has a higher proportion of disk galaxies than most. For the annotated image if the galaxy was likely a member of the cluster I identified it by catalog name as well as showing its redshift. Those beyond the cluster are shown only by distance. Note that some of the very distant (over 2 billion light-years distant) galaxies are larger in angular size than many dwarf cluster members. Often the main way to tell a distant one is that it is redder than close ones though that isn't always true. There are some intensely blue distant galaxies in the image.

It also contains quite a few UvES (Ultraviolet Excess Source). These are found photographically and are likely quasars. With only a photographic redshift this isn't as accurate as a spectroscopic measurement. Only one proven quasar is in the image and it is very blue and 11.1 billion light-years distant light travel time. It is up toward the upper right corner of the image.

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

Related Designations for UGC10407

UGC10445

UGC 10445 is an Sbc, dwarf, starburst, spiral galaxy in western Hercules about 46 million light-years away from us by redshift. Three non-redshift measurements put it over twice that distance if their median value is used. But with only three measurements, two of which are from the same data I don't trust it. If the 46 million light-year distance is adopted this galaxy is about 35,000 light-years across. Even that is big for a dwarf spiral. The larger distance takes it out of the dwarf range completely. Another reason I prefer the lesser distance. While a starburst galaxy it has little HII emission indicating the starburst activity is mostly hidden behind thick dust clouds. The galaxy appears rather isolated. Only three other galaxies with similar redshift lie within two degrees of UGC 10445. They are all much smaller and fainter by comparison. It appears the galaxy managed to become a starburst galaxy without the help of an interaction with another galaxy. This is quite possible.

With 5 quasars or quasar candidates (UvES) in the field. It is rather well endowed with these distant objects.

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

Related Designations for UGC10445

UGC10675

UGC 10675 is a double galaxy in Hercules about 0.8 degrees northeast of Epsilon Herculis. At least it is listed in the UGC as a double galaxy. This misled me. It turns out the two galaxies the UGC refers to are nearly 2 minutes apart. The northern one is LEDA 200340 while the southern one is PGC 059511. Since PGC 059511 is a double galaxy itself due to a recent merger I thought that is what UGC 10675 referred to. This caused me to put it lower in the field than I expected. In any case, my target was PGC 059511. One paper describes it as; " Asymmetric spiral, with photometric parameters proper for an S0 type and presents a prominent tail pointing to the SW and a faint residual interacting feature at the opposite direction." The Sloan image shows a bright core with a faint elongated one to the northeast. I'd hoped to pick that up but seeing was poor. The Sloan image is at http://skyservice.pha.jhu.edu/DR9/ImgCutout/getjpeg.aspx?ra=255.8155992&dec=31.4580668&scale=0.1980635&width=800&height=800&opt=&query= . Also, due to clouds preventing me from being at the top of my game I forgot to turn on temperature compensation making things even worse. Still, I was able to pick up the "faint residual interacting feature", the northeast plume that is, fairly well. Transparency wasn't all that great this night either so I was surprised it came out as well as it did after I heavily enhanced the entire galaxy, not just the northeast plume. Comparing my enhanced version to the Sloan image it looks to me that I didn't add any false features.

Above LEDA 200340 are two pairs of galaxies, only one of each pair has a redshift distance, both appear to be interacting with their companion. They are ASK 222737.0 and 221728 though thanks to my poor focus and the poor seeing the interaction is hard to see. Another for the reshoot list next year.

I've listed several UvES objects (Ultraviolet Excess Source) which are candidate quasars. These usually turn out to be true quasars so I included them but left out other candidate quasars not so identified as they often turn into "rejected quasars" a year or two later.

East of PGC 59511 and below PGC 59529 the annotated image points out an object listed both as a galaxy and as a candidate BLAGN. Most quasars are Broad Line AGN's so this too is a candidate quasar but in this case, the galaxy itself is quite obvious, not at all drowned out by the quasar as is usually the case. Thus it isn't likely a quasar, just has some spectral characteristics similar to one.

For some reason the position of PGC 59524 is rather wrong in all catalogs I checked. They all point to a position near its southern end. NED shows a 1.25" error circle for its position rather than their normal 0.5" circle. Still, their position is some 7 seconds from the galaxies core, well beyond their error circle. I don't know why this error persists all these years. I put the label low about the declination given in the catalogs rather than centering it as I usually try to do. This galaxy received some individual processing to better bring out its detail. I rarely do this but try and disclose the few times I do it. I've included a crop of PGC 059511 before enhancement for those preferring the more "natural" look.

As mentioned conditions were poor this night. So poor one of my green frames was totally useless. The blue frames were poor as well but barely usable. Red frames were taken in the best skies, better than the luminance frames it turned out. So color balance was a bit tricky on this one. I think I got it about right thanks to eXcalibrator.

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

Related Designations for UGC10675

UGC10923

UGC 10923 is a pair of interacting spiral galaxies just over 3 degrees from the pole and about 360 million light-years distant. That means you can image these all night any night if the pole is sufficiently high at your latitude. It does require a really good polar alignment, however. Imaging it, however, has another hurdle, at least for me, Delta Ursa Minoris 14 minutes of arc to the southeast. It sent a very bright gradient across the image. This had a high ADU level such that I might as well have been imaging from a red zone. My normal 40 minutes of luminance wasn't enough under these severe conditions so the image doesn't go as deep as I would have liked.

Trying to find information on this pair I came across a rather odd paper I can't quite fathom. The first and newest note for the pair starts out: "UGC 10923=Mrk 1116 is a multiple system with an interacting companion only 15" to the northeast of the main component. The DSS frame shows an apparent bridge connecting these components to a compact object 20" to the northwest. Another galaxy lies 50" to the southeast." Three galaxies mentioned plus a "compact object" that is obviously just a star. Assuming the large spiral is the "main component" another is 15" to the northeast by this paper. That is the position of the end of the lower fork in the upper arm. 20" to the northwest is a star and the distance I get is 18". It doesn't even mention the other component spiral 45" to the southeast. OK, it does but puts it 50" to the southeast further than it really is.

This pair is so poorly imaged I found only 1 color image of it and that was narrowband so the colors are rather odd. It does show the cores of both are very high in H alpha emission. This image was the first light image of the world's largest telescope the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) 10.4 meter telescope. So it must be a really great image compared to mine. OK, it shows more detail, they have a lot better seeing than I do and a much longer focal length. But being narrowband and all of 50 seconds total image time mine goes deeper! But then I needed 40 minutes luminance, not 50 seconds. But then I suspect my system was more than a tad cheaper. Odd they picked this to be "first light". http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2007/07/first-light-for-gran-telescopio.html

Being this far north there's little information on the field. I've noted the few galaxies with redshift data and one flat galaxy from the 2 micron survey without redshift data.

Did I ever mention I hate bright stars? What a pain they can be.

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Related Designations for UGC10923

UGC10976

VV 426 is a pair of galaxies in Hercules. The western galaxy is UGC 10976, a SB spiral with a drawn out arm. Redshift puts it at 220 million light-years. Tully-Fisher measurements put it between 230 and 310 million light-years. Is it interacting with the other galaxy in VV 426, UGC 10977? NED gives a redshift distance for the pair as 210 million light-years. But it puts the redshift distance of UGC 10977 at 200 million light-years. NED classifies UGC 10977 as Sc. The VV catalog says it is itself a pair of interacting galaxies. I assume the second galaxy is the object on the east (left) end of the galaxy. It isn't in either NED nor SIMBAD. Thus I have no idea how, without something more they can consider these two interacting. If so it is a three galaxy interacting system. It appears to my untrained eye that the two main galaxies are likely interacting or have interacted in the recent past. If they are really about 20 million light-years apart that interacting had to have happened long ago. Thus I think they are closer to each other than redshift would indicate. But they are likely further apart than their projected separation, which if you use 210 million light-years for their distance is only 49,000 light-years.

I measure UGC 10976 at 52,000 light-years including the drawn out arm. UGC 10977 is slightly longer at 61,000 light-years. Though seen nearly edge on it appears the smaller of the two. Thus their projected separation is less than the diameter of either. I doubt the projected separation is close to their real separation however.

This field is poorly studied with no other galaxies in the image showing a redshift at NED. Nor were any asteroids found in the image. For these reasons I didn't prepare an annotated image.

This was my first July image except for Barnard's star I posted back in July right after it was taken.

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

Related Designations for UGC10976

UGC11185

Taken Sunday morning I'm processing this one out of order since it involves Voorwerpjes in the news of late and a pair of galaxies well positioned in the sky right now for others that want to put more time into it to better bring the green cloud out.

UGC 11185 is a pair of interacting galaxies in northwestern Lyra. The right edge of my frame is only a couple minutes of arc into Lyra from Hercules. This interacting pair had long been on my to-do list when finally I had a good night on August 9 that allowed me to get the resolution I'd been waiting for. I'd totally forgotten that it was one of the Voorwerpjes galaxies announced a few months ago. Only when I moved it to my processing computer did it get flagged as falling into that category. So I immediately compared the green frames to the rest and noted a blob not seen on the red or blue frames right where the HST image showed the most green. So instead of putting it into the processing queue I immediately processed it today. The Voorwerpjes popped right out without effort at all thanks to the better than average seeing I had. The HST image shows some on the western side as well as the eastern side but other than a very slight hint of green there I didn't resolve that, unfortunately. Another oddity is the color of the galaxy's core. It is more yellow than I've ever seen in any other galaxy. The HST shows no green in that area but excess green would turn a reddish galaxy yellow.

This pair is about 550 million light-years from us. NED lists both as being UGC 11185 but other sources, such as SIMBAD list only the southern galaxy as being UGC 11185. The MCG lists the southern galaxy as MCG+07-37-030 and the northern one with the Voorwerpjes as MCG+07-37-031. LEDA also lists them separately with LEDA 61664 for the southern and LEDA 61662 for the Voorwerpjes containing galaxy even though it is east of the other. On the other hand, they are a double galaxy in Zwicky's catalog as I Z2 205 Both are listed as Sy2 galaxies.

Voorwerpjes are thought to be gas well outside the galaxy left over from one it is digesting. The process fired up the black hole at its core into a quasar whose light so excited the gas that it is still glowing millions of years after the quasar has faded away, or down to Sy2 status in this case. You can read more about this and see the HST image of this and the other 7 at http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150404.html . The original HST image of UGC 11185 showing a lot more detail than I can is at: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1507h/ . The huge plumes, especially around the northern galaxy is proof the interaction is rather recent. The pair stretch over 260,000 light-years end to end including the plumes. The southern galaxy itself is only about 60 million light-years in size and the northern one ignoring the plumes and Voorwerpjes is only 18,000 light-years across. Just its core seems to remain with everything else thrown out into the plumes.

Since OIII is usually thought of as Cyan having a wavelength of 500.7nm for the strongest OIII line. So why is the Voorwerpjes green rather than cyan? My filters are designed so the OIII line falls about equally in green and blue to give that cyan color. But the answer is that this galaxy at just over a half billion light-years distant is moving away from us so fast the 500.7nm line is seen from earth at 521.3nm. That is fully within my green filter and completely outside my blue filter's skirts. Thus only the green filter sees it. HST uses narrowband filters that are tunable so can catch the OIII lines even though for fixed filters they'd be outside the passband. They then just assign that filter to green forcing the color. But since it is what standard LRGB filters also see I suppose it makes sense even though the true color would be a slightly bluish green color rather than pure green either filter system renders it. On the other hand, Sloan images assign green to blue for some reason, probably to make room for three IR bands plus red. Thus Voorwerpjes are blue in Sloan images, including the first found, Hanny's Voorwerp. Turns out "true color" isn't all that "true" after all.

Since this object is still well positioned for imaging right now I pushed this to the front of the processing line for immediate posting. It's not often something like this is within reach of amateur equipment.

No annotated image as NED had no redshift data on anything in the image but for the two colliding galaxies.

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

Related Designations for UGC11185

UGC11453

KPG 542, also known as UGC 11453 is a pair of interacting galaxies in the northwest corner of Cygnus about 165 million light-years distant by redshift. Not a place you'd normally go galaxy hunting. Pros don't either, unfortunately. I was unable to turn up much about this pair. The spiral has obviously been distorted with the plume along the north side and drawn out eastern arm. There's some disagreement whether it is an ATM or DIS pair. Without getting into details ATM pairs are in a common halo and DIS show interaction. Of course, some are both but I don't see a common halo so vote for DIS with only the spiral showing any interaction. It is classified by NED as Sb with the companion E.

This one could have certainly fit Arp's category for spirals with a high surface brightness companion on an arm. Seems better suited than many he included in this category that are only line of sight pairs separated by many millions of light-years.

Since there are no other galaxies with redshift data in the field and very few faint ones I didn't prepare an annotated image. In fact, the only other galaxy listed at NED is toward the upper left corner. NED lists it as the IR source 2MASX J19321568+5411555. It also is listed as an Uv source, GALEXASC J193215.45+541157.3.

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Related Designations for UGC11453

UGC11564 VV773

VV 773 is a likely pair of interacting flat looking galaxies a bit southwest of the tail star, epsilon, of Delphinus about 230 to 240 million light-years distant. About all I could find on this pair was this description: "Blue post-eruptive pair of Sb on edge and wedge-like compact connected by spotty bridge" (CGPG). As I can't tell where one galaxy ends and the other begins due to the bridge I measured the combination at about 100,000 light-years across assuming they are at the same distance which is unlikely but the difference is probably small.

The field is well within the Zone of Avoidance so little studied for galaxies. This likely explains the lack of information on this interesting pair. There are several other galaxies in the image. I put VV 773 to the right to pick them up though still missed one.

In the center is UGC 11568 listed as an Scd? spiral. It is closer than VV 773 at about 180 million light-years by several different measurements. It is rare when the agree like this. It has a long faint extension to the northeast so has likely had a major encounter or merger in the distant past. Besides this plume, the center seems tilted compared the blue disk. Another indication something happened, likely a merger as I can't find an interaction candidate. Including the plume, it is over 150,000 light-years across but only 100,000 light-years ignoring the plume.

The other major galaxy in the field is UGC 11571 at about the same distance as UGC 11568 as is smaller UGC 11569 to the southeast of UGC 11571. I measure the size of UGC 11571 at about 115,000 light-years making it the largest UGC galaxy. Otherwise, I found little on it.

I missed a spherical galaxy just east of PGC 200364. It is UGC 11572. It shows barely as a faint glow on the very edge of the frame. It and UGC 11571 and 11568 are listed as part of a 5 galaxy group USGC U787. VV 773 is not part of the group.

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Related Designations for UGC11564 VV773

UGC11593

UGC 11593 is a pair of galaxies in southern Delphinus. Most papers I found on this pair consider them likely interacting as the rotation curve of the spiral is "disturbed." Not only did this pair make my list for it being a likely interacting pair but the spiral as a flat galaxy, at least as far as the 2 micron flat galaxy catalog is concerned as it is entry 2MFGC 15614 in that catalog. NED classifies it as Sc other say S?. Redshift puts it at about 340 million light-years distant.

The elliptical companion is MCG +01-52-014. NED classifies it simply as E. Redshift puts it at 350 million light-years indicating it is behind the spiral. This is likely due to the relative speeds of the two galaxies. It may be they are at the same distance or the elliptical is even in front of the spiral. I found no non-redshift distance measurements for either galaxy.

Due to this field being deep in the Zone of Avoidance there's little information on the galaxies in the rest of the field. None but this pair had redshift data or even magnitude information. Only galaxies that made the 2MASS catalog were even listed in NED. So there was no point in preparing an annotated image.

This one got hit by my filter mix-up. I had to take the red filtered images another day after finding I'd taken 4 blue and no red images. That night had a strong aurora and only one of the red images was usable so this image has 4 blue, 2 green and only 1 red frame but the color seems about right and needed only a minor adjustment in eXcalibrator.

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Related Designations for UGC11593

UGC11634

UGC 11634 is a double galaxy on the nose of Delphinus the dolphin that is about 240 million light-years distant. A "bright" 12th magnitude double star hides part of the northern galaxy where apparently a straight arm starts. The arm on the other side is rather normal. Neither galaxy has a classification at NED. The northern one UGC 11634B seems a rather normal Sb spiral but for that odd straight arm. The southern galaxy, UGC 11634A looks like a disrupted spiral with the core well to the west (right) of "center". The core is the golden starlike object on the horizontal centerline right of the vertical centerline. To the west of the pair is CGCG 448-009. It has the same redshift as UGC 11634 so a member of the group. It is a rather red spiral which would indicate star formation shut down many millions of years ago leaving no new blue stars, just old red ones that outlive the fast burning blue stars.

I found nothing on the interacting pair UGC 11634. I would assume they both have been distorted by their interaction. From the tip of the eastern arm to the tip of the western arm is 89.7 seconds of arc by my measurement. This makes the distance from one to the other to be about 105,000 light-years. Even considering its length is increased by the interaction it is still a rather large spiral likely capable of the disruption seen in its much smaller southern companion. CGCG 448-009 is about half the size of UGC 11634B at 47,000 light-years. No other galaxy in the field has redshift data but these three. I cropped the enlarged image to include all three; UGC 11634A and B as well as CGCG 448-009.

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

Related Designations for UGC11634