ARP176

Arp 176 is a pair of interacting galaxies also known as NGC 4933 though this designation includes a third non-interacting galaxy. The IC catalog lists the two interacting galaxies separately as IC 4173 and IC 4176 west to east (right to left). They are located about 160 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo. Arp put these in his category: Galaxies (not classifiable as S or E): Narrow counter tails. His comment on the pair is simply: "Companion galaxy [IC 4173] very condensed." Most notes seem to consider the streamer as coming from IC 4173. I'm not that convinced. Tearing out a tidal arm from such a tight E0 galaxy isn't easy. Tearing one from the far less dense IC 4176 seems to me far more likely.

Most sources class the main galaxy as S0/a. The dust lane I picked up seems to cross the galaxy at a very odd angle. My seeing was awful the night I took this both because it is low in my sky and due to a nasty haze layer that moved in mid-exposure. It really ruined my color data. I tried to salvage it as best I could but the red data was very weak and the green noticeably weakened. I took the blue first before the haze was bad. As a result, getting a good color balance was impossible. I need to reshoot this one next year under better conditions.

NGC 4933 was discovered by William Herschel on May 9, 1784. It isn't in any of the Herschel 400 observing programs. It was later discovered at somewhat different coordinates by Guillaume Bigourdan on April 16, 1895 and listed as IC 4176. He discovered IC 4173 at the same time.

The third non-interacting galaxy is MCG -02-33-103. It shows a similar redshift as the other two but is apparently far enough removed from the other two it isn't involved in the interaction. To the east of Arp 179 is the barred spiral MCG -02-33-105. It is incorrectly identified as IC 4134 in the Kanipe-Webb book on Arp galaxies*. I find no redshift data on it so can't say if it is part of the NGC 4933 group or not. Note that in researching the group I found no consistency in which member was A and which B. It was about a coin flip which a paper would consider to be A. All agreed the tiny eastern galaxy was C. Thus I went with the IC and MCG designations.

Below Arp 176 is a blue edge on or SO galaxy. The excess blue may be due to haze blocking red and the strong red glare from the nearby G5 star which is obviously too blue. Getting rid of its red haze skewed color beyond my ability to rebalance it in this part of the image. It is LCRS B130109.0-112106 at about 270 million light-years. The round puff of a galaxy near the G5 star is LCRS B130102.8-111941 of unknown redshift. West of Arp 179 is NPM1G -11.0360, a strong IR emitting galaxy of unknown redshift. Further west near the right edge is 2MASX J13025195-1129599.

*While some sources do show this galaxy as IC 4134 the NGC project, Seligman and NED have identified it as being NGC 4920 which is just out of my field of view. See the NGC Project for the details. Click on the data button for NGC 4920. http://www.ngcicproject.org/dss/dss_n4900.asp

Arp's photo showing several dust lanes I lost to my seeing is at:
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp176.jpeg

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

Related Designations for ARP176

ARP177

Another twofer image. I'll start with Arp 177 since it is near the center of the image. At the time I didn't realize Arp 302 was also in the field or I'd have moved the field to get them both better centered. These galaxies are in Bootes.

Arp 177/MCG +04-35-016 and MCG +04-35-17 fall in Arp's class; Galaxies with narrow counter tails. Arp's comment reads: "Very small plume comes off companion galaxy opposite larger." It appears the blue plume to the north-northwest coming from MCG +04-35-016 is the "very small plume" while the large diffuse plume to the east of MCG +04-35-17 refers to the "opposite larger" part of the comment. The western galaxy with its plume reminds me of a comet. Redshift data is only available for the western (-016) comet-like member. That puts it at about 460 million light-years. I found very little on this pair. NED made no attempt to classify either galaxy.

Arp 302/UGC 09618a and b (b is the north member) is in Arp's category for double galaxies. Arp had no comment on this pair. They appear to be barely interacting. Some star plumes seem to be starting as there is a halo of stars around both galaxies. The northern member is a starburst galaxy. It's not necessary for an interaction to start a starburst but it certainly helps! This pair is also about 460 million light-years distant so both of these are part of the same local group of galaxies. NED classes the northern one as Sb with strong HII emission and a LINER spectrum. Signs of a disturbed galaxy. Problem is the southern member is rather normal though its spiral arms are a bit kinked. It is classed as Sc. I've attached a Hubble image of this pair.

There is very little information on this area. Sloan shows about 3000 galaxies in the area but has little on any of them. The only other galaxy with any redshift data is the edge on galaxy north of Arp 177. It is UGC 09606 and is in the flat galaxy catalog as FGC 1828. Seems to have too big of a core to make that catalog. Apparently not. A faint hint of a dust lane can be seen crossing the core area but I couldn't pull it out of the disk. It is classed Sbc by NED with a redshift that puts it much closer at 230 million light-years.

North northwest of Arp 302 is a small, very orange galaxy surrounded by a lot of faint galaxies as well as some much closer galaxies. One of the close ones is a very blue spiral with an orange edge on disk galaxy to its right. The orange galaxy I'm referring to is the distant elliptical galaxy almost due east (left) of the blue spiral. It anchors the galaxy cluster NSC J145649+244122. NED shows it as richness class 2 (80-129 galaxies) with a distance of 1.5 billion light years. The galaxy is SDSS J145651.46+244203.5. There's no redshift given but since it is considered to anchor the cluster its safe to assume the same distance. The blue spiral is MAPS-NGP O_383_0185334. That's the only catalog entry NED has for it. It is not in the Sloan catalog though the westernmost point of its faint arm is listed in NED as a separate galaxy. Looks like a bright knot to me. The orange spindle is MAPS-NGP O_383_0185301. Again, it's not in Sloan either. The rest of the field is just as frustrating.

Sorry about my stars. Somehow I managed to turn off PEC and since I don't guide the result is rather imperfect stars. I need to redo this one and get round stars. Maybe that's why the dust lane in the flat galaxy is so hard to detect.

Arp's image of #177
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp177.jpeg

Arp's image of #302
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp302.jpeg

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x10 RGB=2x10x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP177

ARP178

Arp 178 consists of three galaxies NGC 5613 (upper), NGC 5614 (lower) and NGC 5615 (inside NW halo of NGC 5614). These are located in the constellation of Bootes. NGC 5613 is nearly 400 million light-years distant while the other two are a bit less than 190 million light-years away. Arp put these in his category of galaxies with narrow counter tails. His comment reads: "Ring off center, broad ejected plume from condensation in ring."

Most papers of the era of Arp's Atlas and prior consider NGC 5614 as interacting with the northern galaxy (5613). We now know that with 5613 having over twice the redshift this isn't the case. It is unrelated but worthy of its own entry in the atlas. It is classed as (R)SAB(r)0+ by NED and the NGC project agrees but leaves off the + sign. At first glance, it appears to have a faint outer ring. But look closely and you see it is really two very extended spiral arms that nearly overlap. One starts at the 11 o'clock position and goes around to the 4 o'clock position. The other starts at 5 o'clock and goes around to the 10 o'clock position. In both cases, the ends are further from the core than the other arm inside it. This may be easier to see in the Sloan image stretched a bit differently than my image. What caused this? There seems no likely source. Prior to its redshift being determined, it is easy to conclude that NGC 5614 caused it. Now it is a puzzle.

The main feature here is NGC 5614 a very large tightly wound spiral with an off-center core and huge plume. NED and the NGC Project classes it as SA(r)ab pec. The plume seems possibly related to NGC 5615. It certainly is due to a gravitational interaction in the recent past. The off-center core causes Arp's "ring off center" comment. At first, I thought it might be that this was a case of a merger with inner arms rotating counterclockwise and outer ones turning clockwise but I found a rotation curve that says all is rotating the same way. It is just the core being off center from the first ring that creates this illusion. Still, I am having a hard time seeing it. I believe it a merger in progress with NGC 5615.

The condensation Arp refers to is NGC 5615 and has a redshift that puts it about 3 million light years more distant than NGC 5614. NGC 5615 is not classified at NED, NGC project says S? I can't see enough to try classifying it so have to agree with NED. Is NGC 5614 in the process of digesting NGC 5615. I saw suggestions of this in early papers but nothing conclusive. One paper suggests that the tightly wound arms of NGC 5614 might be due to an unusually massive black hole at its core. No reason was given other than it appears such galaxies tend to have larger than expected black holes when this has been measured. Pretty speculative to me. In any case, it is an interesting galaxy as is NGC 5613.

After I wrote this Adam Block posted an image of this galaxy taken by the 32" scope at the Mt. Lemmon Sky Center observatories. It clearly shows NGC 5615 is broken into several bright cores. It also shows the bright blue arcs in NGC 5614 far more clearly. I now think 5615 is quite likely the remains of a galaxy torn asunder by 5614, even the core of it is being ripped apart by tidal forces. I wrote Adam with this suggestion and he agreed it is likely the case. The three million light-year difference in redshift is likely due to relative motion and difficulty of assigning a redshift based distance to a mess like this.

Another galaxy at about the same distance of NGC 5514-5 is to their NE. Several galaxies of the same distance as NGC 5513 are in the frame as well. It appears they are two different groups. Several galaxies at 1 billion light-years are also found around the image. While I see several groups of galaxies in the image only one, the northwest corner is listed as a galaxy group. That is MaxBCG J215.67259+34.98489, is cataloged. It is shown to be a group of 20 galaxies in an unknown area. It is listed with the same position as its apparent anchoring galaxy though their redshift distances are slightly different. See the annotated image for these.

Normally I think of NGC galaxies as being closer than say a half billion light-years, far closer in many cases. But NGC 5609 at 1.31 billion light-years is an exception. NED lists its green magnitude as 16.3 while the NGC Project puts its visual magnitude at 15.7. Since green is usually used for this I can't explain the difference. Still, this one should be visible in larger amateur telescopes from a dark site, say a 16" or larger. Young eyes may glimpse it with less aperture if the brighter magnitude is correct.

NGC 5609, 5613 and 5615 were discovered by Binden Stoney on March 1, 1851. NGC 5614 was discovered by William Herschel on May 1, 1785. It isn't in either of the Herschel 400 observing program.

Often, in my annotated images, two similar galaxies are side by side. Only one though has a redshift published. I often get asked, "Isn't it reasonable to assume the other is at the same distance?" No, it isn't. A good example is in the lower corner of my image where two rather similar galaxies do have redshift data and one is over 3 times further away than the other yet appears only very slightly smaller. Assumptions are very dangerous in this business.

Yet again I happened to check a galaxy in my image that NED doesn't seem to know about. It lists over 5000 galaxies in this field, many too faint for me to pick up, but see Adam's image which does see them and more, on this rather poor night. Yet it missed the one in the northwestern corner of my image marked with a question mark. The star to its left and a bit north is listed but not the galaxy. Sure wish I knew why this happens. There are likely others. I don't check very many for this trait yet find one in a rather high percentage of my images. Note that most of the faint "stars" in the image are actually galaxies that are listed in NED but without redshift. Which is good as otherwise the image would have so many labels as to be useless.

Arp's image
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp178.jpeg

Adam Block's image with the 32" telescope at the Mt. Lemmon Sky Center
http://www.caelumobservatory.com/gallery/n5613.shtml

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

Related Designations for ARP178

ARP179

Arp 179 is the object in the center of my image. Of that I'm certain. But what other catalog names it has is totally scrambled. Each source claims the others are wrong and they don't begin to agree. More on that in a bit. First I'll go with what we do know.

Arp classified this one under Galaxies (not classifiable as S or E): Narrow filaments. The class preceding it is narrow counter-tails. I'm not sure of the distinction. Arp's comment on it is "Condensed offset center." Looks more like a galaxy with a tidal plume to me but we know a lot more about such features than was known when Arp put this atlas together. The galaxy is located in the northwestern corner of the constellation Eridanus not far from M77 (Arp 37).

After this, things get muddled but good. If you ask NED what galaxy is Arp 179 it will take you to a different galaxy. It is in the cropped image. It is the one west and a bit north of the real Arp 179. It lies between an orange star to its lower left and a pair of white and blue stars to its upper right. This galaxy NED says is NPM1G -04.0134 as well as LEDA 175747 and, of course, Arp 179. The Kanipe/Webb book on the Arp Atlas says Arp 179 is NPM1G -04.0134 but points to the right galaxy. To find the real Arp 179 you have to tell NED to go to PGC 11432 or NPM1G -04.0135. Kanipe/Webb say PGC 11432 is an incorrect identification of Arp 179. So I checked The Sky's database. It agrees with NED saying it is PGC 11432 and goes to the correct location for the real Arp 179. It says LEDA 175747 is the galaxy between the two stars that NED says is Arp 179. SIMBAD goes to the right location when you ask it to take you to Arp 179 and says it is APG 179 (Stands for Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies which is Arp's atlas) rather than ARP 179 and LEDA 11432. It uses LEDA as the prefix for PGC galaxies so agrees it is PGC 11432. It says the galaxy between the two stars is LEDA 175747/NPM1G -04.0134 same as NED. Oddly the POSS site http://stdatu.stsci.edu/cgi-bin/dss_form/ when using SIMBAD to resolve object names finds the wrong galaxy. Why SIMBAD gets it right one place and wrong another I don't know.

So I'm going to say Kanipe and Webb may have this one wrong due to NED saying LEDA 175747/NPM1G -04.0134 is the same as Arp 179 but using the wrong galaxy for Arp 179. So I'll use the data for PGC 11432/NPM1G -04.0135 for Arp 179. NED has no classification for it but does show a redshift distance of 193 million light years. It is also listed as 2MASX J03020046-0441257 so is an IR strong galaxy. A good indication of a past interaction that is creating a lot of hidden star creation probably in or near its core. The other galaxy, the pseudo-Arp 179, I'll call it, LEDA 175474, is also listed by NED to be an IR source. But no distance data is available. Could they be related? No way to know, unfortunately. It isn't distorted so I doubt it created the plume. It appears to be to likely be far more distant but without more data that is only a very poorly supported guess.

Arp 179 is the only galaxy in my image with redshift data. What created the plume? I could find no obvious candidates within 3 degrees. Only 2 galaxies at about the right distance were turned up in NED within a 3 degree radius. MRK 1065 44 minutes away and KUG 0306-026 at 167 minutes. MRK 1065 is a SB0 galaxy noted as peculiar. I really didn't see much to indicate an interaction in the DSS plates, however. I suppose the plume could be the result of a merger. I found nothing to support this guess nor negate it either.

Arp's image:
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp179.jpeg

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

Arp's purpose in putting together his atlas was to help show the need to understand what is going on in peculiar galaxies. This has happened in general. We have a much better, though still somewhat incomplete, understanding of how galaxies get their peculiar features. But not all of his galaxies have been studied in any detail. This is one of the ignored ones it would seem.

Related Designations for ARP179

ARP180

Arp 180 is a pair of interacting galaxies. The second is the small blue dot near the core of the main galaxy and right on the arm. In fact, much of that arm may be a plume from this second galaxy thus explaining why this arm is so much brighter and bigger than the northern arm which barely registers in Arp's photo. I find no catalog that names them separately. They are known by several other names MCG -01-13-034 and VV 822 seem the most commonly used. This is the first Arp galaxy I can find virtually nothing on. No distance data at all. Arp's comment is: "S arm kinks back, thin filament connects nuclei." What little I found on it also only mentioned the south arm. I don't know why the north one gets so little respect but it is very faint, nearly in the noise level of my image. The filament that Arp says connects the two looks little different from the short bright arm seen in Arp's image on the other side of the larger galaxy. So the "connection" may be due to perspective and not a real connection.

Also, is it possible the arms trace the path of the little galaxy? That is, it starts to lose stars as it comes in from the north, loses more and more as it passes behind the larger galaxy then loops back toward the core. Seeing the last part more edge on makes it brighten as it closes in on the core. Is it on a death dive or just flying by above the core destined for another trip or two before finally either losing all its stars or being devoured. Either way, its stars are likely destined to join the main galaxy. All this is just my guess but since the core of the main galaxy isn't oriented as if to support these "arms" It makes it a bit more likely to my eye to be a possible explanation. Also if on a death dive the gravity of the little guy could pull a tidal plume to elongate the larger galaxy creating the similar brightenings on either side to the NE/SW.

The galaxy east (left) of Arp 180 is 2MASX J04533482-0448443 at about 900 million light years. The rather bright large galaxy near the left edge below center is LEDA 146644. Again, no information. The field has about a dozen 2MASX IR strong galaxies in the image but only the one already mentioned has any distance data. Most of the rest are anonymous.

Arp's image
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp180.jpeg

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

Related Designations for ARP180

ARP181

Arp 181 is a pair of NGC objects in northern Draco about 429 to 440 million light-years away. Arp put it in his category for galaxies with narrow filaments. In this case, he is apparently referring to the long drawn out tidal arm going to the west of NGC 3212. His comment reads: "Long faint filament extends westward from south arm." This certainly fits NGC 3212, the galaxy on the right (west). But then the confusion sets in. Arp says he is referring to NGC 3210! NGC 3212 is indeed the galaxy with the long straight filament but NGC 3210 is just a double star above the faint part of the arm. The other obvious galactic companion lies to the east so has the higher designation of NGC 3215. The NGC Project says this about NGC 3210: "NGC 3210 is a close double star about an arcminute west-northwest of NGC 3212. WH's description is appropriate, and his position (for all three objects; the third is NGC 3215) is good. There is another star of similar magnitude about 23 arcsec preceding the double; is it possible that WH glimpsed this, too? If so, it would probably have added to the illusion of nebulosity. - Dr. Harold G. Corwin, Jr." It is just the two rather bright blue stars north of the filament. Arp's image of Arp 181 cuts off the eastern side of NGC 3215 but does include the double star. So was he meaning 3212 and 3215 when he said 3210 and 3212? All papers seem to think so. But if that is right it is the only image of all 338 entries to fail to include all of the galaxy(s) involved. Since he was so meticulous in his images I find it odd he failed to include all of the objects. In any case, I'll go with the majority, besides, if I left out 3215 I'd not have much to talk about.

NGC 3212 is classed by NED as S? as SB by the NGC Project and SBb?? by Seligman. I really don't see a bar, just a bright spot on one side of a round, typical core of a SA spiral. Redshift puts it at 440 million light-years. NGC 3215 is classed as SB? by NED, S by the NGC Project and SBbc? by Seligman. So does it have a bar? I see a slight hint of one mostly due to how the arms begin a bit out from the core as if there's a rather obscured bar present. It would seem to also fit Arp's category for three armed spirals as there appears to be a faint southern arm beside the closer in the brighter southern arm. NED gives it a redshift putting it a bit closer, 429 million light-years. That would make it some 140,000 light-years across, a very large spiral. Still, could it pull out the tidal arm of NGC 3212 without it showing much distortion? Or is the tidal arm of NGC 3212 due to something it digested or interacted with in the past? I tend to favor the latter.

William Herschel found is all three NGCs 3210, 3212, 3215 on September 26, 1802. HE got two out of three right. None are in the Herschel 400 observing programs.

The only other galaxy in the field that NED has redshift data for is MCG +13-08-013 near the right edge of the image just above centerline. It is listed at 1 billion light-years. NED makes no effort to categorize it. It is huge at about 200,000 light-years in diameter. I'm surprised it isn't the core of a galaxy cluster but apparently, it is a huge lone galaxy. Maybe it ate all its companions. That would explain its size.

With nothing else in the field with any data to speak of and many of the galaxies not even listed in NED, I didn't prepare an annotated image. I lost 4 L images to clouds and horrid seeing as well as 4 color frames. The weather has been a constant menace in 2012 with many images being affected by it I'm finding. I wanted to go much deeper but the weather had other ideas. This results in the image being noisier than I was expecting.

Arp's image:
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp181.jpeg

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RB=3x10' G=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP181

ARP182

The spike of Arp 192 turned out to be a false alarm and was only an asteroid. But Arp 182 has an even longer and almost as narrow spike that too is virtually straight and darned hard to explain. It also looks artificial and unreal but this one does really exist.

Arp 182 is also part of a group known as Hickson 96. It is a tight group of 4 galaxies about 375 million light-years away. The main one is NGC 7674, Hickson 96A, classed as SA(r)bcP. It is interacting with NGC 7674A or Hickson 96C. The result is a rather normal small plume to the north with a detached (in my image that is) plume further north. The really strange one is the narrow, well-defined one heading in a nearly straight line to the east-northeast. Since it barely shows on Arp's image I didn't see it before my image started to come in. After the first frame, I was sure I had a reflection. I moved it on the sensor but the "reflection" moved like a real object so I went back to my original position and finished the shoot figuring I'd just deal with it in processing. It looked too real when I got around to processing it over 6 months later. A bit of research was called for, looking at Arp's notes, in this case, turned up the fact he had noticed it. His comment: "Long straight, very faint filament like bow wave from companion." Also, I should have noticed his classification under Galaxies: Narrow filaments. I just thought he meant the stuff on the north side. Hubble has taken a great image of this galaxy. It is oriented with east down rather than to the left as my image is. Oddly the filament is dimmer on that image than mine yet his shows the filament I see as detached as connected to the galaxy. I don't know why the difference other than it may be due to my far lower resolution. In fact, it appears the "detached" filament is really an extension of the outer arm much like in the Whirlpool Galaxy, M51, Arp 85. It's the short one tucked in between it and the galaxy that may be harder to explain. Is it part of the other arm? How the long straight eastward filament fits in I just don't know. It does appear to curve into the companion which has a tidal plume at the other end. Problem is the plume is somewhat blue and the other plume is rather red. While the companion has some gas and dust was it enough to trigger such massive star formation in the plume? Apparently, it was.
Hubble's image: http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0810bp/

The third member of the group shows in the Hubble image with some detail. In mine, it is just a small blue oval to the left of NGC 7674. It is Hickson 96D or PGC 71507. The 4th member doesn't fit in the Hubble image frame. It is further east, left, and is NGC 7475, Hickson 96B. Most sources say it is an SAB(s)0 galaxy. NED agrees one place and another says it is E2. It sure has the color of an elliptical galaxy. S0 galaxies usually are white to slightly orange in color. NGC 7674 and 7675 were discovered by John Herschel on August 16, 1830.

There's little information on the other galaxies in this area. The odd spiral directly above NGC 7674, near the top edge of my image, that appears to have but one spiral arm in a otherwise amorphous disk is PGC 071506/CGCG 406-113. It is a bit further away at nearly 550 million light-years. The oval ring galaxy to the southwest is 2MASX J23273713+0841028/PGC 1351684. I have no distance data. The bright galaxy in the upper left corner is PGC 071560/CGCG 406-117, a spiral that also appears to be part of the same group as it too is located at about the same distance.

The edge on spiral at the right edge in the center is PGC 071461/2MFGC 17605. It is only 260 million light years away so probably not related. The galaxy at the very bottom center edge is 2MASX J23275583+0835513. I have little on it. It appears to be another ring galaxy, round this time. Unfortunately, this field is out of the SDSS survey area so most galaxies are uncatalogued. There's an interesting pair of small very blue apparently interacting galaxies NW of Arp 182. Unfortunately, like most in this image they are uncatalogued (Edit: They now are listed as Ultraviolet sources but no distance, see annotated image). A similar pair is to the right of the oval ring galaxy 2MASX J23273713+0841028 halfway to the edge (Edit: They too are now listed as Ultraviolet sources but without any distance). There's also an X-ray galaxy with a very active AGN in the image, HELLAS 209. I've included other galaxies without distance data in the annotated image.

The image contains three asteroids. The brightest to the southeast of the center is (60171) 1999 UP47 at an estimated magnitude of 18.2. Much fainter to the southwest of center not far from the bottom halfway from the center to the right edge is 2005 TF1 at magnitude 19.3. The lack of a number indicates it hasn't yet been observed long enough to make one trip around the sun. (EDIT: It has now received its number and is (272397) 2005 TF1) The third is a bit brighter and is east and a tad north of NGC 7675. This is now my 3rd unknown asteroid. I really do need to check these for unknown asteroids ASAP rather than 6 to 9 months later. It will stay undiscovered for a while longer it appears. Edit: It has now been discovered and is now known as (454899) 2015 TR99. It was previously known as 2004 TN248. Why I didn't pick it up in 2009 when this was written I don't know. Could be it was lost for a while. Oddly it is in the Minor Planet Center database twice. Once with the number and once without. The entry without an number is shown at a position well northeast of the correct position which is shown by the entry with the number. Both show it with a magnitude that is about a full magnitude too dim. I'm used to these estimates being a bit off but never this far wrong. The position, speed and direction of its motion all agree to the prediction so I'm sure this is the right asteroid.

Arp's image:
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp182.jpeg

14"LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10 RGB=2x10x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP182

ARP183

Another twofer deal in Arp galaxies located in Canes Venatici, about 3 degrees northeast of M3. Arp 183 on the left is UGC 8560 and Arp 36 on the right is UGC 8548. Both are about 240 million light-years distant. Both appear highly distorted yet are cataloged very differently by Arp. This image was taken through some haze for 4 of the 6 luminosity frames so doesn't pick up the faint parts of the galaxy as well as I'd have liked. Another I should revisit but probably won't.

Arp 183 is in Arp's class of galaxies with narrow filaments. Apparently he is referring to the very faint spur above the apparently drawn out arm. At least that's what his comment probably refers to when he says: "3 faint patches constitute third arm or filament." The patches are better seen in his image. The two galaxies along the long drawn out arm of Arp 183 are SDSS J133451.48+312306.9 of unknown distance and 2MASX J13345139+3123014/SDSS J133451.36+312301.3 at 1.5 billion light-years. The latter is obviously not related to Arp 183. The former, if at the same distance as Arp 183 seems way too small to be involved. NED classes Arp 183 as an Sb spiral about 240 million light-years distant. The best candidate for what distorted Arp 183 is nearby Arp 36 which is also apparently distorted.

Arp 36 is, like Arp 183 about 240 million light-years distant. It is classed as SB? Arp put it in his Spiral Galaxies: Integral sign class. Though it makes a rather poor integral sign to me. His comment: "Knots in arms approach appearance of small companion." I would certainly agree with that comment. In fact, some catalogs do list the brightest knot in the eastern (left) arm as a separate object. Oddly, a note at NED under Arp 36 actually refers to Arp 183 when it says: "SB with a double companion at the end of the single developed arm." As shown above, at least one of these "companions" is a distant background galaxy. Another note, this one on Arp 36 asks the question "Two cores?" I don't think so. This other bright object seems, in my image, to be a blue knot of new massive stars at the end of the western bar where the arm starts. There's a similar dimmer one at the start of the eastern. Several others are visible as well. Such massive star formation is common in near galaxy collisions as may have happened here. Both galaxies certainly show this effect.

The tight trio of galaxies below Arp 36 consists of WAS 75 at about a half billion light-years and 2MASX J13341649+3117095 at about three-quarters billion light-years. The third galaxy is SDSS J133417.21+311718.0 distance unknown. Below is small S0 like spiral SDSS J133417.57+311645.5 also distance unknown. The two with unknown distances are labeled with a question mark. West of this group is a pair of very red objects. The bright one is 2MASX J13340124+3117057 at 1.5 billion light-years. The SDSS catalog lists the western one as a 20th magnitude star. Its PSF doesn't look like a star in my data. Looking at the SDSS image I tend to doubt the star label but that's what I've labeled it in the annotated image. It could be the halo of the galaxy is causing the confusion so I'll reluctantly defer to the SDSS.

Below the above galaxies is, the IR strong galaxy 2MASX J13341158+3114204 at 1.5 billion light-years. It is classed as S0. It's very unusual for an S0 galaxy to have the star formation in its core needed to reach the level of an IR galaxy. Also, it must be huge to appear so large at such a distance. A quick calculation assuming it is fully face on to us puts it at about 160 million light-years in long diameter. I can't recall an S0 galaxy that large. Sure would like a closer look at this one.

Near the left edge is the distorted galaxy SDSS J133539.83+312336.1 at 800 million light-years. It is partly hidden behind a bright star, unfortunately.

There's one asteroid in the image, (239730) 2009 BL170 at an estimated magnitude of 19.4. It is moving in pro-grade motion rather than retrograde as it was taken early in the morning. It also shows how conditions improved during the image. The first part of the trail (long part) is dimmer than the shorter later luminosity images. Dawn was breaking so I couldn't get any more and never went back. The gap is due to the taking of the color frames.

Arp's images:
Arp 36
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp36.jpeg

Arp 183
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp183.jpeg

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP183

ARP184

This is a reprocessed Arp 184/NGC 1961. Problem is it is at nearly 70 degrees so spends nearly all its time in my Polaris Tree. When I took this data over 2 years ago I had to do so over many nights. Even then trees (pine needles anyway) crept into the image making a mess of the stars and the background. Flats don't compensate for pine needle obstructions! My ability to handle this was limited back then. So I decided to reprocess the image using my improved skills and larger tool set. While I now could deal with the stars and background better there's a loss of resolution due to diffraction effects of all the needles I couldn't eliminate. The trees have continued to grow so doubt I can even do this well again unless I do some trimming. Since they are 100 feet tall that is a bit beyond my ladder's reach and I'm too old to try climbing them. Even a cherry picker can't reach the branches I need to reach. This will have to do.

This time I was able to bring out the many HII regions in this galaxy. Considering it is about 180 million light-years distant these must be huge compared to those we normally see in galaxies. In angular size, they are about the same as those in M101 at only 25 million light years. The distortion to this galaxy is very hard to explain. While it is a member of a small group of galaxies at the same distance (the three largest other galaxies in the image are members of this group) none show any hint of distortion so didn't cause the distortion. The other often cited reason would be a merger but the papers I found say this isn't likely. Maybe not but either this guy is intrinsically distorted or the product of a long-ago merger. I prefer the second choice. NGC 1961 was discovered by William Herschel on December 3, 1788.

Out of the Sloan survey field, NED has distance data on only the three other members of its group in the image and one quasar at 7 million light years very near the galaxy. It's faint and I won't try to point it out. Those interested can look it up at NED or download the DSS image of it. It is IXO 29. Which stands for "Intermediate-Luminosity X-Ray Object."

Edit: I've now made an annotated image that shows what few have distance data at NED. Also since this was taken I had to remove the pine trees as they were in danger of falling on the house or observatory but so far I've not retaken this object.

Arp's image
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp184.jpeg

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=8x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP184

ARP185

Arp 185/NGC 6217 is in Arp's class for galaxies with narrow filaments. Though I don't see any in this case. Arp's comment doesn't help much. It read: "Condensed nucleus, faint outer arms less curved than inner arms." Kanipe and Webb seem to indicate he may be referring to the brighter segments of these faint outer arms. They are about the only part of the outer arms visible in Arp's image.

Arp 185/NGC 6217 is located in Ursa Minor just above the bowl of the little dipper and is about 60 million light-years away. Redshift says 61 which may be rather accurate in this case, at least the HST folks give this figure. This was the first image taken with the ACS camera after the last repair mission got it back in working order. The image is at: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap091228.html . The field doesn't include the faint outer arms, however.

It is classed by NED as (R)SB(rs)bc; HII Sy2. The R and (rs) would indicate a ring structure. The SBbc means a barred spiral with arms intermediate between those of b and c structure (a is tightly wound while d is wide open arms. HII means lots of HII emission which is obvious in the Hubble image. Only the large region at the south end of the bar shows as pink in my image though other show as blue due to the HII being overpowered by the new super hot blue stars created by these regions. It also has an active nucleus of the Sy2 class. This is because it is considered a starburst galaxy by many of the papers I looked at.

It has a rather broken bar with arm segments coming off not just at the ends. One arm seems to come right off the core on the east side. Several arm segments come off the west side, one at the core and two below the core. North of the core it's pretty much a jumbled mess on the west side. I saw nothing in the papers about any ideas how it got this odd structure. Could a merger be involved? I have no idea. Seems possible. I'd expect that to show in a detailed velocity analysis of the galaxy. Apparently, that's not been done as best I could tell. Did anything come of the HST image? Again I drew a blank. The Hubble site only talks about how it shows the ACS camera is again operational.

NGC 6217 was discovered by William Herschel on December 12, 1797. It is in the original Herschel 400 observing program. My notes made on May 18, 1985 with my 10" f/5 at up to 120x on a good night reads: "Oval galaxy with a starlike nucleus. No detail is seen in the halo. Arms can be made out but aren't what I'd call distinct." I've pushed the contrast of the arms in my image. See the included SDSS image for a more natural presentation.

Near the left edge of the image is the strange spiral galaxy UGC 10509. Its arm structure is very weird. Is this really two interacting galaxies on top of one another? I don't really see a core of a second galaxy. Did it interact with either or both of the nearby galaxies to the north? Only one has redshift data. That indicates it is likely at least part of the same local group. Neither companion seems distorted, however. Being much smaller I'd expect they'd suffer far more in an interaction. For now, I'll say they likely aren't interacting but something certainly has it would seem. Unfortunately, Hubble didn't test the ACS camera on it.

Only a very few other galaxies are even cataloged in this field. Coverage up by the pole seems rather poor for galaxies. What I did find were several X-ray sources. All are very bright in visual light. Some are very blue which isn't surprising for an X-ray object. The ones with the RIXOS prefix were found by the ROSAT X-ray satellite's survey. All of those are considered by NED to be X-ray galaxies with active galactic nuclei. But not as quasars though they are so bright and so distant I find that surprising. I'd think only a quasar would be that bright at their distance. One is from the RX catalog. Also the result of the ROSAT X-Ray satellite but apparently not from the survey? I am only guessing as to the difference. These, NED says, were obtained not from a published catalog but from "the literature". The one with that designation in my image is listed by another X-ray catalog (Pietsch+Arp) as being a quasar. It is more distant than all but one and by far the brightest in apparent magnitude.

NED also lists 5 galaxy clusters from the OC05 and OC06 galaxy cluster catalogs (Optical Cluster). Unfortunately, the positions are listed with an error circle of 25" of arc radius! Also, no size or galaxy count is given. Because of there being no way to pin down their location to a sufficient degree and lack of any other data I didn't include them in the annotated image For those interested enough to look them up they are: OC06 J1633+7808; OC05 J1632+7806; OC04 J1629+7811; OC04b J1629+7806 and OC04a J1629+7803.

Most galaxies in the image weren't cataloged any place I looked. Even the rather bright blue fuzz ball southeast of Arp 185. I marked it with a question mark. I really am interested in what the heck it is. Most galaxies of its shape are ellipticals that are very red. It probably is an S0 galaxy seen end on. Usually, they have a higher surface brightness than this one does. It's likely a rare breed, whatever it is.

Arp's image:
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp185.jpeg

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

Related Designations for ARP185