WBL409

WBL 409 is a group of three galaxies about 58 million light-years distant in Virgo not far from its major Virgo Cluster galaxies like M84, M86 and M87. These three are red and dead galaxies with little detail to be seen in them, not even the spiral NGC 4440 has any fine detail being mostly a fuzzy red spiral galaxy. IC 3349 is also likely a member of the group though its redshift puts it 80 million light-years out a non-redshift measurement puts it 61 million light-years. The redshift of Virgo cluster members is very wide-ranging and undependable as a distance measure. The three NGC galaxies were discovered by William Herschel on April 17, 1784. For some reason, NGC 4436 is classified as a dwarf elliptical or dwarf S0 galaxy even though it isn't all the much smaller than the other two. Assuming the 58 million light-year distance I measure NGC 4431 at 30,000 light-years, NGC 4436 at 29,000 light-years and NGC 4440 as being 44,000 light-years across None are in either H400 observing program. IC 3349 was discovered over 120 years later by Royal Frost on May 10, 1904. Assuming it too is about 58 million light-years distant I measure it at 16,600 light-years in size. It does deserve its dwarf label.

NGC 4431, NGC 4436 and NGC 4440 were discovered by William Herschel on April 17, 1784. They aren't in either H400 program.
IC 3349 was discovered by Royal Frost on May 10, 1904.

ASK 386242 in the eastern side of the image is interesting looking. I wish we weren't nearly 2 billion light-years from it as it has a huge drawn out arm or plume. I measure it, including the plume at nearly 150,000 light-years in size. Something has really happened to this galaxy. I found nothing on it, unfortunately.

The field contains several extremely low surface brightness dwarf galaxies. I labeled them even though I found no distance data for them. The one north of NGC 4440 is very faint and hard to see. The easiest being in the upper right corner.

Speaking of faint there are 4 asteroids in the image, three are also very faint and difficult to find. The brightest is not much brighter but I was surprised to find that it is not in the Minor Planet Center's database. This is yet another case of my not looking at an image until long after it was taken. If I had looked at it that day or the next I could have sent in the position for others to track or I could skies permitting. Now, weeks later, it is too late and it is again lost. I don't know how the constant surveys missed this one. Maybe they didn't and somehow it just didn't get in the database. In any case, I marked it as "Unknown". The three known ones are all magnitude 20.1 or fainter by the MPC's estimate. The unknown one is somewhat brighter.

Transparency wasn't all that great this night so I didn't pick up the faint dwarf galaxies as well as I'd hoped or expected to on a good night. This will have to do. I'll leave that to others.

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

Related Designations for WBL409

WBL685

This galaxy group is located in northern Pegasus at the border with Lacerta and about 1 degree north of the far more famous Deer Lick Galaxy, NGC 7331. The 6 brightest members are known as the UGC 12127 group and WBL 685. But the group is much larger than this. It is part of the B2 2236+35:[MLO2002] CLUSTER which in turn is part of the Zwicky cluster 2231.2+3732. Each designation has a slightly different distance estimate but it's in the 350 to 400 million light-year range depending on which galaxies redshift you use or average them to about 375 million light-years.

The 6 galaxies that make up the WBL 685 group are NGC 7342, PGC 069378, PGC 069385, PGC 069386, NGC 7345 and PGC 069406 using their WBL numbers 1-6 respectively. The annotated image lists distances to all in the group than NED had redshift data on. It only listed group members though you can see many, obviously very distant galaxies, in the background. While most refer to these by their UGC number I get a ton of email complaining I should use PGC numbers as their systems don't use UGC. The Sky I use to find them using either designation. NED doesn't carry anywhere near all PGC galaxies so this can be a pain. Two I listed are from the NSA catalog as it was much shorter than any other designation. They are not in PGC, UGC or other basic catalogs. NSA is the NASA-Sloan Atlas but while carried by NED it isn't carried by SIMBAD.

All galaxies in this group appear to fall into the red and dead category. None show any sign of recent star formation though since some are IR sources that may be going on behind hot obscuring dust. I didn't find much on this group. Still, I thought it interesting enough to put on the to-do list.

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

Related Designations for WBL685

WHITING1

Whiting 1 isn't much of a globular cluster. It certainly won't win any photogenic awards but it is quite interesting. Most globular clusters are about 10 billion years old, having formed with the galaxy 10 billion years ago. Whiting 1, however, is much younger, probably about 6.5 billion years old. This is possible because it likely didn't form in our galaxy. In fact, it is part of what is known as the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy (SagDEG) also known as the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy. This galaxy, or what's left of it, was discovered in 1994. It is now mostly a stream of stars representing what was this galaxy before our galaxy began digesting it. In 2002 the star group in my image was discovered, three years later it was shown to be what's left of a globular cluster that likely belonged to the SagDEG.

It is about 112,500 light years from our galaxy's core and 98,100 light-years from earth according to Hartmut Frommert of SEDS. http://spider.seds.org/spider/MWGC/whiting1.html A paper on this cluster with slightly different values is at http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0702253 .

Always looking to press the limits of my system I had to go after this cluster in central Cetus. It turns out to be not all that difficult to resolve, at least the brighter stars. I assume the bright stars seen against the cluster are just field stars in our galaxy and not members of the cluster. One of the fainter stars turns out to be a galaxy. It is pointed out in the annotated image. NED has little on most galaxies in the field. I've identified all with redshift information and a few without and only known by coordinates. Quite a few more are listed in NED but since they are only known by their positions and have no redshift data I didn't try to list but a very few of them.

Galaxies labeled KISSR are from the Kitt Peak National Observatory International Spectroscopic Survey Red spectral region. Those with an x are candidates according to NED.

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

Related Designations for WHITING1

WLM

The Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte galaxy was discovered by Max Wolf as a nebula in 1909. At that time galaxies weren't really recognized. It wasn't until 1926 that Knut Lundmark and P.J. Melotte determined it was a galaxy. It is now recognized as a distant member of the local group being some 3.4 million light-years distant by some sources. NED, using 26 measurements mostly using Tip of the Red Giant Branch and Cepheid variable methods gives a median value of 3.2 million light-years. Others sources say 3.0 million light-years. All agree it is more distant than M31 but like M31 it is moving in our direction and is thus blue shifted. As a member of the local group, it is quite isolated with its nearest neighbor being over 1 million light-years away. That one is the rather well known IC 1613. I do need to retake that one as my data for it from 2007 is awful, especially the color data. The WLM galaxy is located in southwestern Cetus just below my normal 15 degree south declination limit. Fortunately, I had an exceptional night so was able to capture it though not with the detail I'd get if it was up out of the gunk.

The WLM galaxy is classified as IB(s)m at NED. Assuming the 3.4 million light-year distance it is some 10,500 light-years long and 6,200 light-years wide using the extent seen in my raw FITS files. Its actual size is likely larger as the faint halo is hidden by my low transparency this low over the lake even on a good night.

While there are many other galaxies in my image only one 2MFGC 00035 in the upper left quadrant has any redshift data. That puts this rather flat, edge-on galaxy some 460 million light-years distant. NED makes no attempt to classify it or any other galaxy in the image.

If WLM was higher in the sky I think I'd have been able to resolve many more stars than I did. I live too far north to do this one justice. The galaxy goes by other designations such as DDO 221, PGC 143, UGCA 444 and MCG -03-01-015 to name a few.

Adding to the losses is the fact I left the low-level floor lights on in the observatory. Why they were on I don't remember. I see a skewing of my normal color levels toward red due to this. Also, the luminance channel has a somewhat higher background than normal but neither was a significant issue. It being so low did far more harm. Still, I wish I'd not left those floor lights on. The other object taken that night, NGC 784 also has this issue. Other than adding a slight, easily handled gradient, I don't think the lights hurt it.

I should note that's a star in our galaxy at about the center of the galaxy, not its core.

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

Related Designations for WLM