FGC0851

FGC 0851/PGC 025886 is a huge flat galaxy seen nearly edge-on showing its lack of a central bulge. It would be a great sight if we could see it face on. It is a bit over 160,000 light-years across making it a huge spiral. NED classifies it as SAB(rs)b: while others say they see no sign of a bar. Why the discrepancy? Might help if we saw it more face on I suppose. It has a strange non-symmetrical dust lane structure with the southern lane nearly straight while the inner one has a curve that doesn't seem to be quite right either. Lower right side dust lanes are just a jumble of dust.

This field is in Hydra. Just a bit too close to the Zone of Avoidance for the area to be surveyed very well. Only a few of the galaxies had distance data. I have annotated all that had such data. All but the one just off the northeast tips of FGC 0851 are listed by NED as having an Abell 0754 galaxy cluster designation. The cluster is about three-quarters of a degree below the image. The cluster is listed as having a distance of about 750 million light-years. A few of the galaxies have that distance but most are too far or too close to be members of the group. I'm not sure how or why these obviously unrelated galaxies have been brought into the family. I assume this was done before their distances were known and if they met a certain magnitude range were automatically included. I haven't found anything to confirm this, however. The cluster is thought to be the result of the merger of two or more clusters. It covers too much sky for my field but those with wider fields might find it interesting to go after.

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

Related Designations for FGC0851

FGC1751

FGC 1751/UGC 9242 is a somewhat commonly imaged super flat galaxy. As one of my goals is to image the better FGC entries (obviously not all of them by a long shot) I had to get this one even if it is not as rare as most of my objects. To make the FGC a galaxy must be at least 8 times longer than it is thick. This one is over 16 times longer than it is thick so qualifies as a super flat galaxy (CGCG dimensions). It has a compact blue nucleus with starburst characteristics and a number of rather bright and compact H II complexes visible throughout its disk, to quote one note at NED. One of these may or may not be a galaxy. NED shows one catalog entry for the bluest of the knots as a separate galaxy and says it is a compact spiral. Even in the Sloan image, I see only a small round blue object. Similar to others in the galaxy, just more round and bluer. I've noted it in the annotated image. Redshift is nearly the same as for FGC 1751. NED makes no mention of this entry being part of FGC 1751 or any hint of doubt that it is anything other than a compact spiral galaxy.

Another note at NED says+ of FGC 1751: "(It) is a completely unremarkable, edge-on spiral galaxy." Apparently being thinner than virtually all other galaxies isn't remarkable. NED classifies it as either a Sc or Sd spiral. I measure it at about 332 arc seconds long which at 75 million light-years would make it about 120,000 light-years in diameter. A healthy sized spiral. The CGCG says only 250 seconds which is way too short by my image. That is the distance between the last star knot at each end but the galaxy extends well beyond its star knots. So I had to measure its thickness and got 13 seconds rather than the 15 the CGCG states. So by my measurements, its ratio of major axis to minor axis is 25.5:1 Now that's thin.

West of the southwest end of FGC 1751 is a galaxy labeled at a distance of 3.53 billion light-years. Just above and to its right are a pair of apparently interacting galaxies. The western one has a large plume extending to the west. It is SDSS J142429.59+393100.1 the eastern (left) one is SDSS J142430.05+393059.3. Unfortunately, that's all I can tell you about the pair.

There are several quasars in the field. I've had several requests recently to post z values rather than convert to distance because at such high redshifts z is probably a better measure as there are too many assumptions in converting z to a look back distance at such high values. They want to do their own calculations. So for those with a z of > 1 I'll try and post z when room allows as it did here. You can get an idea of how z relates to distance comparing the lowest z in the image 1.852 to the highest of 3.759. While the latter is 2 times greater the light travel time distance (how long the photon has been traveling from our reference frame) is only 19% greater. Z is very linear at small values but due to its exponential nature (it is infinite at time 0) suddenly explodes as you get near the time of the big bang.

I should explain what z is. It is a measure of how much the wavelength of a specific spectral line has been shifted due to the expansion of the universe. If a spectral line was expected to be at say 500nm, its rest wavelength, but is observed at 600nm then it has a z of +0.2 by the formula: z = (Observed wavelength - Rest wavelength)/(Rest wavelength). The value is positive when the object is moving away (redshifted as 500nm is green but 600nm is red-orange in color). If moving toward us it would be blue shifted and the z value would be negative. So the quasar in the image with a z of 3.759 has light that was say at 300nm when emitted (that's in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum) is seen by us to have a wavelength of 300nm x 4.759 = 1427.7nm which is well into the infrared part of the spectrum. Since the light my CCD is most sensitive to is about 500nm that would have been only 114nm when emitted, far in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum. That puts it just into the extreme UV part of the ultraviolet spectrum. This points out the big difference between our eyesight and hearing. We see about one octave of light (an octave is a doubling in frequency) that ranges from 800nm (very red) to 400nm (very blue or indigo). Actually, 700nm is more the human eye limit, I'm stretching some to reach a full octave. But our hearing covers nearly 10 octaves, 20hz to 20,000hz. Imagine music confined to the range of middle C to high C. That's the limitation of our eyesight but it is also about the limit of what frequencies of light get through our atmosphere. Some sunlight gets through about a half octave higher than 400nm and a half octave lower than 800nm. So, unfortunately, due to our desire to breathe, we have a much greater limit to our eyesight than our hearing. This is why astronomers put telescopes in space to see the full range of light frequencies not just the one or two octaves seen down here.

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

Related Designations for FGC1751

FGC1953 UGC10043

Do you believe in flying saucers? FGC 1953 aka UGC 10043 certainly is a flying saucer-like galaxy. Appropriate number as I recall a lot of SciFi UFO movies in 1953: War of the Worlds and It Came from Outer Space as well as lesser-known Phantom from Space and Invaders from Mars (almost a cult classic today) as well as the silly Abbot and Costello go to Mars. Or the very forgettable Catwomen of the Moon except it used the same sets, props and costumes as the supposedly unrelated Project Moon Base (which came first?). Yes, I saw them all. It was the year I started building my first telescope as well. But back to the topic.

FGC 1953 is located in Serpens Caput about one hundred million light-years distant by redshift measurement. Other methods put it much further away averaging about 160 million light-years. In this case, I'll go with the redshift distance as there are several nearby galaxies with similar redshift. The lone note at NED says it has two companions to the east with the more distant being a dwarf. The nearer one is likely a true companion as its redshift is quite close to that of FGC 1953. But the "dwarf" lies some 3.4x further away by redshift so is not a dwarf at all being some 65,000 light-years in diameter, rather typical for a spiral. FGC 1953 is slightly larger at 70,000 light-years. Note it isn't a perfect flying saucer, the south ansa bends to the right while the northern one bends slightly left. It has been slightly warped, possibly by its real companion MCG +04-34-035, a low surface brightness mess of a galaxy. Was it normal before interacting with FGC 1953 or it unrelated? I found no opinions or discussion about this.

Normally an FGC galaxy has no real central bulge in order to meet the 7x length to thickness rule to make the catalog. In this case, however, the disk is so unusually thin its central bulge looks huge. Also, note it is somewhat oblong with its long axis at right angles to the disk. Or so it appears in my image. This seems strange though I've seen this before, never this obvious however.

Also in the image is Hickson 77 to the east of FGC 1953. It is made up of two unrelated interacting pairs of galaxies. The northern two are interacting irregular galaxies about 100 million light-years from us while the southern pair are interacting S0 galaxies nearly a half million light-years distant. The southern member of the northern pair, HCG 077D, is made up mostly of several large, bright, blue star clusters in an ill-defined faint halo while its northern companion seems to have some hint of spiral organization. Hickson knew these two pairs were at these different distances when he included them in his catalog of small galaxy groups.

I've identified all galaxies under a half million light-years distant and included their classification if shown at NED. More distant objects are labeled G for galaxy and Q for quasar. Quasars are so distant their light travel time is a poor indicator of distance so I've included the redshift value (z) as well. A z value of 2 means it is moving away so fast the light has been stretched to three times its at rest value so all the light I've picked up was originally deep ultraviolet light when it left the quasar.

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

Related Designations for FGC1953 UGC10043

FGC2004

FGC 2004/UGC 10288 is a flat, edge on galaxy in eastern Serpens Caput about 100 million light-years distant. It is quite similar to the far more famous FGC 1471/NGC 4565, just much further away. Both are in the FGC and have near star-like cores and a great dust lane. For this reason, it has been on my to-do list for some time but being just below the celestial equator I never seemed to have the seeing needed for it until last May. When I went to research it later in the fall I was surprised to find it much in the news from the fall of 2013. Seems it was discovered to have a radio jet but only recently was that jet tied to a background galaxy nearly 7 billion light-years distant. Even more surprising is I picked up this galaxy in my image. It is marked in the annotated image. These two links cover this quite well.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-334
http://news.umanitoba.ca/new-galaxy-discovered-hiding-behind-another/

The annotated image lists all objects with a redshift in NED. The radio galaxy is only listed as a radio source at NED with no distance. The position is the center of the radio emission which, since these are jets doesn't quite match (by about 2") the position of the optical galaxy creating the jets. I list by catalog name those that have a name other than just its position. That forced me to use some very unusual catalogs as few of the objects in the image are in the normal catalogs I use for identification. I avoid positional names as they are very long and clutter the annotated image. But these obscure catalogs have nearly as long of a designation. I'm thinking of just labeling such galaxies as G for galaxy or Q for quasar etc. rather than cluttering the image with such long names. What would you like?

Near the bottom of the annotated image is a point source labeled G? with a distance of 12.06 billion light-years. Since there's no galaxy I'd see at such a distance it has to be either a quasar or the photographic redshift is very wrong. The object is really two but only looks slightly elongated in my image. Sloan's image shows an orange starlike object to the left and slightly below a blue near starlike galaxy. The position matches that of the orange starlike object, not the bluer object. I'm wondering if the combination has thrown the photographic redshift measurement way off and this is just an orange star superimposed on a distant blue galaxy only a billion or two light-years away. I couldn't find anything more on it unfortunately.

I ran into dawn when taking the color frames. Saving green for last, since it is least important, I ran too far into dawn and one green had to be thrown out. Dawn created some nasty color gradients I had to remove but think I didn't distort the color data doing so. I did retake the color data two days later but its quality was worse even though taken in darker skies. I didn't use it.

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Related Designations for FGC2004

FGC2350 UGC11838

FGC 2350 is a flat galaxy in western Pegasus between the horse's front feet almost into Cygnus. Redshift puts it 145 million light-years distant while the median value of 12 Tully-Fisher measurements says 160 million light years. That makes it 80,000 to 89,000 light-years in size. NED classifies it as Sd. It is also known as UGC 11838 and is in two other flat galaxy catalogs. It's also in a very lonely place in the sky. NED lists only 2 other galaxies in my field, neither with even a magnitude. No asteroids showed up either. I'd hoped to find some info on this flat galaxy but other than catalog listings there's nothing on it. I didn't even record how I came to put it on my to-do list.

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Related Designations for FGC2350 UGC11838

FGC240A

FGC 240A is a very strange galaxy in southeastern Corona Borealis about some 340 million light-years distant. If you are wondering where FGC 240 is it is on the opposite side of the sky at 2 hours rather than 16 hours. How this numbering scheme works is beyond my brain. NED fails to classify though does label the trio of galaxies that is UGC 10273 and includes FGC 240A as a spiral? A paper I found on it says simply peculiar so that's what I put on the annotated image. It certainly is weird. The brightest spot a bit below center is actually a blue knot of stars. It appears the real core is further down where it is orange. At the very bottom is another blue knot and a faint plume pointing at a quartet of tiny galaxies, three are in a neat line. The long tail to the north is blue and has much fainter and smaller knots in it. How it got that way I don't know. We are apparently seeing it rather edge on. It is obviously severely "sloshed. I'd love to know what it looks like more face on. I measure its length at 175,000 light-years. While there are two galaxies known as "Taffy Galaxies" (UGC 813 and 12914/5) due to being stretched this one seems even more stretched than those.

The other two members of the UGC 10273 trio are LEDA 1831614 and ASK 361310.0. LEDA 1831614 may have something to do with FGC 240A's odd appearance. Though I found nothing to indicate this in papers. This galaxy is quite red with blue seen only at the far end. It is about 40,000 light-years across so rather typical for a spiral of its type. I found no classification for it but it does appear to be a Sa type spiral also seen rather edge on to my eye.

The third member, ASK 361310.0 appears somewhat separated from the other two though that may be only due to perspective. It could actually be closer than LEDA 1831614. Redshift puts it slightly closer though this may just be due to its motion relative to the other two. It is only some 29,000 light-years across. Again no one I found classified it.

I mentioned the four tiny appearing galaxies below the southern plume of FGC 240A. Are they dwarf members of this group? Another name for the trio is VV 489. One paper said they were likely part of the VV 489 group though I can't see them actually included the VV catalog. It also identified them as one galaxy not 4. I just assumed they were distant background galaxies. Seems more reasonable to me along with several others NED had no data on close to FGC 240A.

7 galaxies have a redshift distance of 0.70 or 0.71 lightyears. I assume they are all related but found nothing on this.

No asteroids were in the image.

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Related Designations for FGC240A

FGC2512

FGC 2512, better known as IC 5329 is, as the name indicates, a very flat galaxy near the center of the Great Square of Pegasus. Redshift puts it about 250 million light-years distant while Tully Fisher measurements say a bit closer at 225 million light-years. One place NED indicates it is a Scd: galaxy though another says Sb. When the galaxy is so edge-on it isn't any wonder there are some differences of opinion here.

It has a true companion, IC 5331 if redshift is any indication as that says it too is 250 million light-years distant. But here Tully Fisher measurements say about 270 million light-years. Again rather close to the redshift distance but not all that close to the Tully Fisher distance for FGC 2512. In any case, this one isn't so edge-on and is classed as Sab with no disagreement seen.

Unfortunately the night, like the majority of nights in 2012, wasn't very good with rather poor seeing for imaging galaxies at this distance. Even after trying on several nights the best frames weren't very good so I apparently gave up trying. I threw out more than I used. Of those used three of the luminance frames did have fairly good seeing but horrid transparency while two with good transparency were the victim of poor seeing. Color frames tended to be from that poor but clear night as seeing isn't as important for color data.

Only one other galaxy in the image has redshift data at NED. It is [MGW96] 233153.34+205845.4. That's the only designation for it I could find. While there are many other galaxies in the image with common catalog entries this is not one of them. To find it look to the very left edge of the frame at the level of the north end of FGC 2512. It looks like a somewhat, rather bright, fuzzy blue star rather than a galaxy. It comes from the Mohr, Geller and Wegner catalog. Redshift puts it at about 1.14 billion light-years. At 16.76 magnitude that is one really bright galaxy. NED has nothing on it. It looks like a blue compact type galaxy to me though with it only partly in the frame it is hard to tell much. With only these three noted in NED's redshift data, I didn't prepare an annotated image.

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

Related Designations for FGC2512

FGC261A

It's nice when two from my to-do list fit into one frame. I didn't realize it when I shot this. I thought I was only getting UZC J211152.4+111637 (Updated Zwicky Catalog)/UGC 11694 but then realized FGC 261A was also in the field. By putting it near the center I also picked up another interesting spiral, UGC 11700.

UZC J211152.4+111637 was my primary target so I'll start there. It drew my attention due to the very weird dust lane it contains. It doesn't make any sense nor could I find anyone who studied this oddity. Notes at the UGC say: "Peculiar E or S0?; Extended asymmetric envelope; Condensation north-preceding center may be a companion galaxy." NED indicates the MCG also indicates possible interaction. I have no idea what they see to the northwest that they consider a possible companion galaxy. I see nothing in that direction. While a note calls it peculiar and E or S0 the UGC itself makes no attempt to classify it. Nor does NED. It does appear possible that it is the result of an incomplete merger of a spiral (NE-SW axis) and an elongated elliptical (N to S axis). That could explain the warped, off-center dust lane.

My other object was the flat galaxy FGC 261A/UGC 11696 which NED does classify as Sdm? Again I found nothing much on it. In case you are wondering FGC 261 is about 60 degrees east of FGC 261A. I'd have thought to find them close, maybe even interacting, not a sixth of the sky apart. They do have about the same declination, however.

The third galaxy UGC 11700 is a very rectangular galaxy. The western arm is thin and very straight. The entire galaxy seems red for a spiral. NED classes it as SBb, a barred spiral which seems right to me. Besides the two arms coming from the bar there are arm segments that seem to start from these two arms. Looks to be interesting if we could get a closer view.

All of these as well as several others form a loose group of galaxies with a distance of a bit over 200 million light-years. They are located in northern Equuleus east of M15. This is the smallest constellation in northern skies. It's possible that UZC J211152.4+111637, UGC 11700 and CGCG 426-015 have their odd shapes due to interaction sometime in the past.

In the annotated image, if the galaxy appeared to be part of the group I listed it by name (shortest I could find to save space) and distance rounded to 2 decimal places based on redshift using 5 year WMAP data. One galaxy SDSS J211130.09+111843.0 had no distance but did appear as a member of the group. Look at it in the full image (less compression than the annotated image) and you can see it has a bright spiral center with huge faint arms much further out. These may also indicate interaction with one or more other group members in the past.

The background appears a bit uneven and streaked NE to SW. I see this on the Sloan survey plates as well. I think it due to faint IFN in the area. One streak seems to follow the angle of UZC J211152.4+111637 to the southwest. At first, I wondered if it was some sort of superplume but IFN, which is known in the M15 area, seems a far better explanation.

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Related Designations for FGC261A

FGC693

FGC 693/UGC 4133 and UGC 4134 are a pair of overlapping galaxies in northwestern Lynx about 400 to 420 million light-years distant. The pair is known as KPG 151 (Karachentsev Isolated Pairs of Galaxies Catalogue). A type 1a supernova was seen in FGC 693 just above its core. This led to many different distance determinations depending on how much dust is assumed between us and the supernova both in our galaxy and especially in the host galaxy as it is seen nearly edge on making it hard to know how deep in the galaxy the supernova was. Redshift puts it at just under 420 million light-years but the distances based on the supernova range from 300 to 670 million light-years. They average to 420 million which matches the redshift. The galaxy is classified as Sc. If it appears large for its distance that's because it is a huge spiral. I measure it at 328,000 light-years across! While its size is rather obvious in my image the published size is somewhat smaller than seen in my image. Using the published size it is still 284,000 light-years across. Note too that the southern ansa appears to be bent to the right (west) though the upper ansa seems normal. I don't know if this is an illusion due to it overlapping UGC 4134 but it sure looks real to me.

The companion NGC 4134 is listed as SBb, a barred spiral. Its redshift puts it at 410 million light-years. I found no other distance estimate for it. While the two overlap it is hard to tell which in front of the other. It appears possible that FGC 693 is in front which is contrary to the redshift data though fits some non-redshift distances such as the median rather than mean value of the various type 1a distances of 400 million light-years. UGC 4134 is another very large spiral. Its edges are very clear making a size determination rather easy at 180,000 light-years with a diameter of almost exactly 1.5 minutes. But the published size is only 1 minute of arc giving a diameter of only 120,000 light-years. I can't fathom how that 1 minute size was determined.

Both galaxies are surprisingly red. This is noted in a paper on photometry of galaxy pairs in the KPG catalog. Until I found that paper ( http://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf/2001/43/aa1209.pdf ) I suspected something was wrong with my color balance even though the stars appeared correct.

Many other galaxies in the field are also at about 400 million light-years. In the LDCE (Low-Density-Contrast Erratum) catalog of galaxy groups show this field as #549 and said to contain 13 such galaxies at an average distance of 390 million light-years while the HDCE (High-Density-Contrast Erratum) catalog has the field as #462 with 10 galaxies also at 390 million light-years for this field. Yes, many of the same galaxies are in both groups. For instance, FGC 693 is listed as #6 in the LDCE group and #5 in the HDCE group. I don't pretend to understand how this works.

One of these other galaxies is in the upper left corner, NGC 2488. It too is at 400 million light-years and listed in both the LDCE and HDCE as #9 and #8 respectively. It is an S0-: galaxy that was discovered by William Herschel on March 18, 1790. It is not in either of the Herschel 400 observing programs. At 12th magnitude, it would seem a candidate for one of them. If you thought the two spirals were large this one is really big. In this case, the edges are very indistinct. In my image, there's a faint outer halo that has no color as the night was too poor to pick up color in something that faint. Still, the outer region is quite obvious. Including it and using its distance as 400 million light-years I get a diameter of 440,000 light-years using the edge as seen in the FITS files. Using the portion that survived the color processing it is still 400,000 light-years across. But if the orange portion only is used then it is 250,000 light years across. But again the published size is way smaller than its obvious size in my image. That gives a diameter of only 170,000 light-years. I can't explain why published sizes for these galaxies is so small. Maybe they were made from old plates of poor depth. That's only a guess. Though even the POSS plates show these larger than their published sizes.

This field is poorly covered by both NED and SIMBAD. Many galaxies were in one or the other but not both. Others were in neither. One low surface brightness galaxy is marked in the annotated image with a question mark being in neither catalog. Most had no distance data unless they were part of the galaxies in the group at about 400 million light-years. The only exception is in the lower left corner where a galaxy at over 900 million light-years was listed from the PC ((Palomar) PFUEI CCD) catalog. I did annotate what few galaxies that had catalog names other than just their coordinates even if they had no distance data.

BTW, PFUEI stands for Prime Focus Universal Extragalactic Instrument on the Palomar 5 meter telescope. Did someone stay up all night dreaming up an acronym that is phonetically "phooey"? The description reads: "An 800x800 Texas Instruments CCD served as the detector; its 15 micron pixels coupled to the reimaging optics produced an image scale of 0.415" and a field size of ~ 30 square arcminutes." That's a field of just about 5.5 arcminutes on a side so quite small. That also works out to be about f/1.5. The "reimaging optics" work like a 0.4545 compressor it would seem.

Weather continues to plague my imaging. I managed the luminance data on a rather warm February night that had fair seeing (only a bit below average) but transparency fell rapidly. The last luminance frame is only about half the density of the first. The color data was useless that night. Two nights later we had good transparency but horrid seeing. While I took some luminance data the seeing was so bad including it degraded the image. But the color data, while very fuzzy was quite good so was used for this image. Problem is it was about 20C colder that night. This changes my image scale greatly so the color data didn't quite fit the luminance. I had to match the luminance to the color data to be sure everything had color data. This didn't change my image scale significantly as when you spread the 20 pixel difference over 4008 pixels it isn't significant.

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

Related Designations for FGC693

FLAME

There is a nebula right next to the eastern star of Orion's belt called "The Flame Nebula, NGC 2024. The star is known as Zeta Orionis or Alnitak. Alnitak means "The Belt". With the nearly full moon out and clear skies a couple nights back I tried an H-alpha shot of it. But Zeta Orionis' brilliant light caused so many internal reflections in the scope the entire right side of the image is a mass of reflections of Zeta making a mess of the photo. I don't know what caused the reflections but there's a bunch of them. What a mess. The only way I could cut them down at all was to position Zeta in the picture (it was really really really bad with Zeta out of the image) and by cutting off the "top" of the nebula. If I moved it down in the image or any place else the reflections were far worse. After two hours wasted trying to find a position that worked, I settled on this one. The flame is very near the Horsehead. Both can be put into one wide angle photo. While the Horsehead and Flame are part of the same complex they are caused to glow by different stars. The Horsehead is caused to glow by distant Sigma Orionis. The flame's energy comes from Zeta. Because Zeta is so close it also adds reflected light. While my photo doesn't see the reflected light, in color photos the Flame is far less red than the Horsehead. This is because it reflects back to us a lot of Zeta's light. For this reason, the flame doesn't respond well to nebula filters. A photo showing both the Horsehead and Flame as well as Sigma (it's the bright blue star "above" the horsehead near the top of the image. http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap950925.html With the nearly full moon, I couldn't take any color data. I imagine the internal reflections would have made that a useless attempt in any case.

Reproduced at 1.5" per pixel

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Related Designations for FLAME