IC0065

IC 65 is a somewhat non-symmetrical spiral about 110 million light-years distant in the constellation of Andromeda north of the famous Andromeda galaxy, M31. It is classed as SAB(s)bc. Is it naturally unsymmetrical or is this the result of an encounter with another galaxy? It is a member of a very small, sparse group known as the IC 65 group. So sparse I can identify only one other member of the group in my image. That is [VH2008] J0101+4744. A very small dwarf galaxy to the northeast. Further southeast is [VH2008] J0100+4734 which I really wanted to know more about as it seems to consist of several condensations. Unfortunately, NED has no distance data and only an approximate position making it impossible to tell if it refers to all the parts or just some or even one of them. There is a larger member of the group out of the picture several minutes of arc above the top of my field. Not knowing it at the time I centered on IC 65 so missed it. The only other galaxy with distance data is MCG +08-03-003, the obvious elliptical galaxy to the northwest of IC 65. It, however, is much more distant at 630 million light-years. I found little on the field.

IC 65 is nearly 140,000 light-years across, making it a very large spiral. While [VH2008] J0101+4744 is only about 12,000 light-years in diameter, less than 10% the size in area and 1% in volume. There may be a small round galaxy at its eastern end. The orange elliptical MCG +08-03-003 is very large at about 175,000 light-years. I'd expect such a galaxy to anchor a group but I found nothing to indicate that was the case with MCG +08-03-003.

It was discovered by Lewis Swift on September 25, 1890.

Many other galaxies are visible in the image. Only 10 are even listed at NED. I listed them all in the annotated image. Most had no distance information so are just listed by catalog name. [VH2008] is the Vennik, Hopp catalog. The 4C object is from the Fourth Cambridge Radio Catalogue indicating this galaxy was first found by its strong radio emission. It is listed in the 1RXS (ROSAT All-Sky Survey Bright Source Catalog of X-ray sources) and the 2MASX IR object catalog. It covers a rather wide spectrum. NED, however, doesn't list it in an ultra-violet catalog. The vast majority of galaxies in the image are apparently anonymous. I hope their inhabitants aren't offended by that slight.

I had a very nasty reflection to the east of IC 65 cause unknown. I get these sort of triangular shaped "features" every once in a while. If I see them in the first frame I move the field a couple minutes and they vanish. When the main object is off center a bit that is likely why. In this case, the image was taken automatically so I wasn't available and didn't find it until I went to process the image. I cloned it out. But you will note there is quite a bit of scattered background light. Some of the brightest to the east where I removed the reflection. Since the glow appeared on all sides of the reflection I cloned it in rather than leaving the area as black as areas without the glow. What I don't know is if this is real or a bigger reflection issue. I tried enhancing the POSS plates but no hint of it turned up. Though areas of Andromeda do have rather ill-defined galactic cirrus. Not being an expert on galactic cirrus I don't know if that is what I picked up or not. In case it is real I left it in. I need to retake the field with a different camera pointing to verify which is the case. Normally I'd trust it to be real but since it could be related to the obvious reflection issue I am not as confident that it is real.

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

Related Designations for IC0065

IC0148 PGC6292

IC 148 is a rather small blue, warped, disk galaxy in Pisces only 22 minutes of arc from the far more famous polar ring galaxy NGC 660. Just too far for me to put them in the same FOV. They do have similar redshift so are likely related and maybe even interacting. It may be the cause of the warping of this galaxy. The distance to it is rather uncertain. Even APOD won't try to pin that down for NGC 660 saying only that it is over 20 million light-years from us. Redshift puts IC 148 at 22 million light-years while a single Tully Fisher estimate says 35 million light-years. I tend to favor the larger value mainly due to its angular size. If the 22 million light-year figure is used the galaxy is only 22,400 light-years across. That seems small to me. The larger distance makes it 35,600 light-years across, a more reasonable size. If its angular separation from NGC 660 is a good indicator of their real separation, that is they really are at the same distance from us, then they are only 139,000 light-years to 221,000 light-years apart. That's quite close. This, of course, is the minimum distance between them, the actual distance could be much greater since neither has a good distance estimate.

NED classifies it in one place as Sc(f) and Im another. The latter could be consistent with the smaller size and nearer distance while the former gives it about the same size as M33 which fits its classification better. I've imaged several galaxies with the (f) designation in their classification. I found several explanations for its meanings all mutually exclusive. After years of asking I received a paper on this galaxy that explains it. It comes from a catalog of edge-on galaxies. http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/cgi-bin/ex_refcode?refcode=2006A%26A...445..765K
From the abstract: "We subdivided these types further into subclasses: Sa(f), Sb(f), Sc(f), Scd(f), Sd(f), Irr(f), where the (f) indicates that these galaxies are seen edge-on."

The annotated image shows a surprising number of quasars and quasar candidates (labeled UvES in the annotated image). The one asteroid is identified in the annotated image.

After writing the above I checked my image of NGC 660 taken in 2009 using generation 1 filters rather than generation 2 used for the IC 148 image. There was a small amount of overlap. My processing methods have changed greatly since 2009 so it is processed much differently. Rather than take the time to reprocess the 2009 image I did a quick rework to sort of match the two into one large 2705x2464 mosaic at 1" per pixel. Due to the small overlap of only stars, the processing differences aren't very noticeable. It does show the relationship between these two galaxies. To do it right I need to retake NGC 660 with today's optical train (even that has changed slightly) and process them the same. I don't see that happening. Thank goodness for RegiStar that managed to match the two with only a very small overlap between the two and slightly different image scales and distortions at the edges where they meet.

IC 148 was discovered by Lewis Swift on September 30, 1890. NGC 660 was discovered by William Herschel on October 16, 1784. It is in the second Herschel 400 observing program. Unfortunately, my notes from those observations were lost in my move to Minnesota.

Data for the IC 148 image:
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME
Data for the NGC 660 image is the same but for some reason, the blue channel used three 10 minute images rather than 2 used for the other color channels.

Related Designations for IC0148 PGC6292

IC0166

IC 166 is an open cluster in Cassiopeia. It is about 10,750 light years from us by one paper I found. The WEBDA puts it at 13,000 light-years. Pinning down an open cluster's distance is still beyond the science in most cases. Its age is estimated to be about 1.32 +/- 0.43 billion years by one paper though WEBDA puts its age at about 426 million years. A rather large discrepancy. I vote for the older age as being more correct. Wide-field images show it is seen at the edge of a weak dark nebula so stars are likely reddened. WEBDA says it is reddened by one full magnitude. It's age plus the dust likely account for the rather red color of most of the stars in the cluster. It was discovered by William Denning sometime in 1890. His records sometimes can be pinned down only to a year as is the case here.

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

Related Designations for IC0166

IC0171

IC 174 is a strange elliptical galaxy in Triangulum about 230 million light-years distant. It has a very strange red dust lane and is quite irregularly shaped with plumes going in several directions. My 60 minutes of time wasn't enough to show them very well. I took three times this data but it was so poor it made the image worse rather than better so wasn't used. Someone with better skies likely can show the plumes better. I found no reference to the dust lane and only an understated comment in the UGC saying "Complex center, slightly asymmetric envelope." That seems to ignore the plumes. I agree the core region has some interesting structure not normally seen in elliptical galaxies. In all, I'd think this is a likely the result of one or more rather large galaxies it has consumed. Though I found nothing in the literature about it. A single non-redshift measurement using the Fundamental Plane system to determine distance comes up with 210 million light-years. Rather good agreement yet the method assumes the galaxy is quite symmetrical in its mass distribution. Since that might not be the case here either it means these plumes have little mass and the vast majority of the galaxy is symmetrical or the method just got lucky. Probably the former is the case.

IC 174 was discovered by by Stephane Javelle on November 5, 1891.

Only two other galaxies had any redshift data, both at the top of the image. They are of similar distance so are likely related. The galaxy I most wanted to know about is KUG 0152+349 south-southeast of IC 170. NED classifies it simply as "Spiral". That seems odd as I see no hint of spiral structure. It seems composed of a faint core with four bright regions around it. I'd love to see a better image of it but can't find one. I found no redshift for it. Also near the bottom of the image is what may be a pair of interacting galaxy. Only the northern one is even listed in NED. The southern one has a plume to the southwest and a weak one to the northeast that overlaps the northern galaxy. I found no information on this pair to help determine if they are related or not.

One faint asteroid appears in the image of nearly 20th magnitude and moving rather rapidly. That makes it rather faint in the image. Though, if this had been a typical night this fall for transparency I'd have missed it entirely.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x10', RGB=3x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for IC0171

IC0187

IC 0187 is a pair of galaxies in Triangulum on the border with Aries. In fact, UGC 01533 (upper left corner) is in Aries. IC 0187 is an SBa spiral about 220 million light-years from us. UZC J020133.7+262902 is superimposed on IC 0187. The ALFALFA catalog considers them a merging system though the UGC calls them simply superimposed galaxies. Are they merging? The smaller UZC galaxy does seem to have a faint plume on the northeastern ansa. This may just be normal for the galaxy. I see no sign of interaction distorting the form of the larger IC 0187. With no redshift data for the UZC galaxy, I have to consider this as yet an unanswered question. The ALFALFA data is taken with the Arecibo radio telescope. Radio data may show features unseen at visual wavelengths. I didn't see any explanation as to why they consider this a merging system. Both galaxies are rather red in color with few new stars. Interaction often triggers star formation. Both appear to have plenty of dust and likely gas for this. I lean toward no interaction but it wouldn't take much to change my mind. Obtaining a redshift for UZC J020133.7+262902 might help settle this question. Also, consider that if this is their first approach then distortion wouldn't be easily seen at my resolution. My crude modeling of such interactions back in the early 80's showed little until distortion until after closest initial approach.

The field is rather poorly covered at NED. I've identified every galaxy in the field noted at NED, most have no magnitude, redshift or classification data. The only exceptions besides IC 0187 are IC 0188 and UGC 01533. IC 0188 has almost exactly the same redshift as IC 0187 so is likely a true companion. NED classifies it as S?. Its core is sloshed in that it is well off center. This is usually considered a sure sign of interaction. Could the possible tidal features of the UZC galaxy be due to interaction with IC 0188 rather than IC 0187? I'd think if IC 0187 had "sloshed IC 0188 it would show some sign of it as the mass difference doesn't seem sufficient to protect it. IC 0188 is much bluer than IC 0187. This color is consistent with it interacting with something and its "sloshed" state.

Edit: It seems the identity of the galaxy I've identified as IC 0188 is disputed by some. Both IC 187 and 188 were discovered by Edward Swift on January 18, 1890. But there's nothing at his his position. There is a galaxy, PGC 7706 a half degree south. That is what I've marked as IC 188.

UGC 01533 is a rather typical barred spiral classed as SABcd:. It is nearly 3 times more distant than IC 0187 and IC 0188.

The vast majority of the galaxies in the image are unlisted at NED though Sloan has imaged this field. I expect it eventually to be included at NED but until then this will have to do.

IC 187 was discovered by Edward Swift on January 18, 1890. While I've identified the galaxy northeast of IC 187 as IC 188 many say IC 188 doesn't exist and it should be called simply by its PGC designation, PGC 7706. This is because there's nothing at the position Swift has for IC 188 yet he "found" it the same night as IC 187 whose position he got reasonably correct. But his position for IC 188 is an empty space 30 minutes north of the galaxy sometimes called IC 188, PGC 7706. Here Seligman and Dr. Corwin of the NGC project disagree. Seligman says it isn't PGC 7706 and Dr. Corwin says it is. You can read all about it here http://cseligman.com/text/atlas/ic1a.htm#ic188

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

Related Designations for IC0187

IC0200

IC 200 is a nice, overlooked, barred spiral in Triangulum about 230 million light-years away. It is classed as an SBbc spiral that may house an active nucleus. It appears disturbed, especially on the west side. A note at NED says: "One double arm eastwards from north side, hints of one extremely diffuse arm on south side, possibly also double." Its arms are rather drawn out making it some 165,000 light-years across at a minimum. IC 200 was discovered by Truman Safford on December 1, 1866.

Only two other galaxies in the field have redshift data at NED. While smaller both in angular size and in light-years they are some 50 to 60 million light-years closer to us. One, FGC 242 is a flat galaxy classed as an Sd spiral but only some 46,000 light-years in diameter so only 28% as large as IC 200. Even smaller is the Spiral CGCG 504-012 at about the same distance from us. While listed simply as "Spiral" at NED it looks like a severely distorted barred spiral, at least at my resolution. It is only 37,000 light-years across. Though if you include the very faint plumes to the north and south it is about 41,000 light-years in size. Still rather small but not quite a dwarf.

I've identified all objects in the annotated image that NED lists as a galaxy. None of these have redshift data. Many more are listed as UvS objects. Most are stars but separating which is which is difficult with nearly 450 to sort through to determine which are galaxies and which are just stars would take hours so apparently, even NED hasn't tried this.

I have included the three UvES objects NED does list for this object. All are very blue and may be either very blue stars or quasars. NED lists them in one catalog as quasar candidates and another as a star. Flip a coin. If other fields are a guide most of these turn out to be stars once a spectroscopic redshift has been recorded.

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

Related Designations for IC0200

IC0226

IC 226 and IC 227 are the largest members of the MCXC J0228.1+2811 galaxy cluster. The cluster is located in the southeast corner of Triangulum and is just under a half billion light-years from us. Major galaxies of clusters usually get their size by devouring smaller members of the cluster that get too close. While IC 227 shows no sign of this other than its large size compared to the other members of the group IC 0226 is an obviously highly disturbed by something it ate recently. While the two IC galaxies fall into the red and dead classification, likely due to the many mergers pushing dust and gas needed for star formation out of the galaxies, IC 0226 shows a very blue arc just beyond its very faint red disk. Could this be the remains of its last meal? If the devoured galaxy had lots of dust and gas then that may have been available for new star formation as it was stripped from the galaxy as it spiraled in to its doom.

Arguing against this is that it is a low surface brightness galaxy with a rather small black hole at its core with only minimal AGN activity. So what caused the odd arc of bright blue stars outside the main disk of the galaxy? I found little on it but for this paper which looked mostly at the HI in this and other similar giant low surface brightness galaxies, https://arxiv.org/abs/1609.07544 .

As I just mentioned IC 226 is considered a Giant Low Surface Brightness Galaxy by what few papers I found on it though NED made no mention of this. While the core region seems to be of normal brightness the disk is very faint. I enhanced this region to get it to show. With my normal stretch, the region between the center and the blue disk was very hard to see. So I went against my usual rule of not treating one part of an image differently than the rest. It certainly is a giant galaxy. Including the faintest parts, I measure it as over 350,000 light-years across. That makes it slightly larger than IC 227 which I measure at 250,000 light-years. Still, a giant elliptical galaxy. Even PGC 9415 is large at 170,000 light-years.

IC 226 and 227 were discovered by Rudolf Spitaler but a few days apart. He saw IC 226 on December 31, 1891 and IC 227 on December 24, 1891.

In the southeast part of the image is LEDA 213001 and PGC 9447. LEDA 213001 shows a faint drawn out arm or plume toward PGC 9447. This is just a coincidence. While LEDA 213001 is a member of the galaxy cluster PGC 9447 isn't being only 77 million light-years distant. Some other galaxy likely caused the drawn-out arm of LEDA 213001. Such interactions are common galaxy clusters but which one caused it, or even if it is one in the image, as the cluster extends beyond my image, I don't know. PGC 9447 looks a bit distorted or warped but I think this more due to its wide arm structure seen nearly edge on. I likely would look more normal seen face on.

I suspect most galaxies in the image, especially the red ones, are likely cluster members. Unfortunately, this area of the sky is not very well studied. I listed all galaxies that had redshift data at NED. I didn't search further though should have I suppose. It certainly is full of galaxies. NED didn't have a size for the cluster nor a galaxy count. The area just isn't well studied as I keep saying.

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

Related Designations for IC0226

IC0239

IC 239 is a low surface brightness spiral that is considered part of the NGC 1023 group. NGC 1023 is Arp 135 and is located about 45 minutes of arc east of IC 239. It is located in far eastern Andromeda while NGC 1023 is in Perseus. The distance to both is highly controversial. As a member of the 1023 group, it should be at approximately the same distance. When I took Arp 135 back in October of 2008 I put it at 20 million light-years. That isn't likely correct. While current distance estimates for Arp 135 seem to collect around 32 to 34 million light-years values down to the 20 million light-years I used and up to 64 million light-years are found in the reasonably current literature. I'll go with 32 million light-years simply because that is also the redshift value for IC 239. Using that distance the separation of IC 239 from Arp 135 is only 430,000 light-years so it is possible that IC 239 is feeling the tidal forces of the far more massive Arp 135. Indeed it shows faint extended arms or plumes to the north and south. Attempts to get a Tully-Fisher distance estimate are bugged by not being able to determine exactly how face on we are seeing it. Two different methods of determining this give two very different answers. With so many uncertainties it is possible, but unlikely the two aren't related. My post about NGC 1023/Arp 135 with its likely too close distance estimate can be seen here.

NED classifies IC 239 as SAB(rs)cd LINER2. This indicates something may have shaken up the core black hole to a rather active state. That may be Arp 135. Assume the 32 million light-year distance I get a size of about 42,000 light-years and that includes the plumes. Ignoring them it is 30,000 light-years in size. So not only is it a small spiral its low surface brightness indicates few stars filling what little volume it takes up. As such it shouldn't be hard for a larger companion to distort it as appears to have happened. Though if it has a ton of dark matter we can't see all this is moot.

It was discovered photographically by Isaac Roberts in 1893 using the 20" reflector at his observatory "Starfield", Crowborough Hill, Sussex, UK. He put it in Perseus though at that time the constellation borders were not well defined and it may well have been in that constellation by the boundaries in use at the time. Today it is only in Andromeda by 28 arc minutes.

There is only one other obvious galaxy in my image, PGC 2802360 to the east. Another very low surface brightness galaxy. No distance information is available at NED. It may be a dwarf member of the group. In fact, it's other catalog name is NGC 1023 GROUP:[TT2009] 18. That, I've found, doesn't count for much as galaxies labeled as members of other groups often have redshifts that put them billions of light-years from the cluster whose name they carry. With nothing worth annotating but for IC 239 I didn't prepare an annotated image.

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

Related Designations for IC0239

IC0277

IC 277 is a galaxy with a large plume suggested to me by Sakib Rasool. It is about 120 million light-years distant in the constellation of Cetus. Why it has such a huge plume is the issue. It might be due to a nearby galaxy. The one to the north is often cited as being related. Problem is there's no redshift info on it and it doesn't appear distorted. Usually, such a small galaxy would be torn apart by the far larger one not the other way around. That's the problem with the others nearby as well. Either the culprit has moved on or this is the result of a merger. I find nothing in the literature to help. It was discovered by Stephane Javelle on January 6, 1894.

While the Sloan survey has images of this area, none of the data is in NED. That left only two other objects in the field for which NED had distance data. I wasn't going to prepare an annotated image but then looked at these two. They are both listed as quasars. One of which is so different from what I normally think of as being a quasar I decided it was worth covering. This is [HB89] 0257+024/US3498. NED lists it as being a galaxy, a quasar, a blue star and a UvES object. Wow, what an overachiever this guy is. The distance listed is only 1.45 billion light-years. Super close for a quasar. In my image, it looks like a quite normal spherical reddish galaxy. It looks the same on the Sloan image. Yet this is what a note at NED has to say about it:

"The host of this radio-quiet quasar is dominated by a disc component with a best-fitting scalelength of r_1/2_ = 10 kpc (Fig. 1n). The model-subtracted image in Fig. A14 shows a ring of emission at ~4 arcsec radius. Also revealed is substantial residual flux in the inner ~2 arcsec where the host galaxy is bulge-dominated. This feature can also be clearly seen in the luminosity profile shown in Fig. 1(n). As a result of the central bulge, the variable-beta model chooses a substantially lower value of beta (0.75), and offers a significantly better {chi}^2^ fit than a pure exponential disc. Nevertheless, this transpires to be the most disc-dominated host galaxy in the quasar sample observed to date."

The full paper can be seen at: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/bib_query?1999MNRAS.308..377M though I've reproduced about all it has on this particular one. Since it was done with HST data I did look that up and have included a quick and dirty process of the mono HST image of this galaxy. Shows what appears to be a Sa tightly wound spiral with a very bright core compared to the disk. Arms are of very low contrast as the image is done in the red region of the spectrum 675nm so would likely suppress the disk region and lower arm contrast. Note the really strange galaxy to the northwest in the HST image. Seems strangeness is rather common if you look deep enough.

The other quasar is at a more common distance for a quasar. No galaxy is seen, just a very blue star-like object. NED lists 4 objects as UvES from the US catalog (USher Faint Blue Stars). Often these turn out to be quasars. Until the Sloan data is published there's no way to tell if they are just blue stars or quasars. I've labeled them on the annotated image. As usual, if no distance data is available I use a question mark where it would normally appear.

I saw a blue frame was lost to clouds and replaced it but missed that a green one was also lost to clouds so had to process it with one less green frame than normal. Also, I thought two luminance frames were unusable due to clouds so retook two. Turned out it was slightly better using all 6.

14 LX200R @ f/10, L=6x10 RB=2x10 G=1x10, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for IC0277

IC0284

IC 284 is a rather low surface brightness spiral in Perseus. Redshift puts it at 110 million light-years distant while Tully Fisher distances have two at 79 million light-years and one at 121 million light-years. Assuming the redshift distance it is a large spiral at 130,000 light-years across. It is classified as SAdm at NED and SAd? elsewhere. An Sd galaxy is often quite large due to the spread out arms so this may be reasonable. If the nearer Tully Fisher distance is used it is a more normal 93,000 light-years across. The larger estimate makes it 143,000 light-years in diameter. Throw a three sided die and pick one. It was discovered by Lewis Swift on October 27, 1888. The apparent companion V Zw 319 is a red spherical compact galaxy surrounded by a circular halo with a bar according to the CGPG. Seligman says it is behind IC 284. I can't really tell which side it's on from my image. The eastern half is easily seen making it appear in front but there are other similar galaxies in my image at twice the distance of IC 284. It could be another from that group. In any case, there's no sign of interaction so it could be much closer or further or nearly the same distance. Unfortunately, there's no redshift data on it.

The other IC galaxy is IC 288 listed as S? by NED and Sab? by Seligman. It too was discovered by Lewis Swift but on October 31, 1888, 4 nights after he found IC 284.

The field around IC 288 has a large arc of nebulosity. At first, I thought there was something wrong with the image. The flat had worked well with other images so was there some reflection causing this arc in the light frames? The Sloan image shows pieces of this nebulosity but not the entire arc I am seeing. Still, I'm pretty confident it is all a real feature. I'll leave it to other imagers to take a deep image at a wider field and pick up this dust. I was unable to locate any nebula in the area in SIMBAD so it may be galactic cirrus (IFN). If so it is unusually bright.

Two faint asteroids made an appearance. The fainter one barely survived the JPG process but if you enlarge the image you should be able to just see it.

This area of the sky is poorly studied for galaxies. Only the 2MASS survey covers this area. Since it only picks up those seen at the two micron wavelength deep in the IR part of the spectrum many galaxies with little 2 micron emission aren't cataloged. Since so few were I broke my usual rule of not showing galaxies without redshift as well as my rule of not showing those only identified by their position in the sky. There were so few these didn't clutter up the image as normally would happen if I did this with a typical field of galaxies. Several I wanted to know more about didn't make the 2MASS so aren't cataloged. I marked those with a question mark though many other overlooked galaxies could also get that question mark label.

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

Related Designations for IC0284