IC0620

IC 620 is one of a pair of interacting galaxies about 470,000 light-years distant. The Sc galaxy is located in Leo about 6 degrees east of Regulus. The pair is known as CGCG 065-055. Three starlike blobs are seen in IC 620 while one is in the companion. Of the three in IC 620 two are to the west of the core. The lower is listed by NED as a possible QSO candidate. The one to the north and the one north of the galaxy's core are listed as rejected QSOs. The one in the companion southwest of its core is brighter than the other three yet not listed at NED at all. Are they just field stars or star clouds created by the interaction between the two galaxies? I couldn't find anything more on them. The galaxy was discovered on March 31, 1892 by Stephane Javelle who described it as "very faint, very small." He made no mention of the companion. Thus only the one makes it into the Index Catalog. It is listed as Sc by NED and Sbc? by Seligman.

To the northeast of this pair is another pair. ASK 379089.0 and an apparent companion to the west with a super blue star between them. But it too is a galaxy according to NED. Unfortunately, only the eastern one has a redshift measurement. Are they all related or just three arranged by chance in this tight trio? Another unanswered question. Why is the middle one so blue? I've got lots of questions with no answers.

North of IC 620 is a strange ringed galaxy ASK 379380.0 listed as S0^- with no mention of a ring. It is listed as having an AGN and is at the same distance as many in the image. I suspect the ring structure is due to a collision and possible merger with one of the other galaxies in the group. Again, nothing on it as I couldn't find anything referencing the ring. It's very faint but real.

IC 620 is part of the WBL 279 galaxy group at 480 million light-years. NED lists only 5 members but there are many more with redshifts in that range in my image. On the eastern side of the image is the Abell 1042 galaxy cluster at 2.25 billion light-years which is listed as being 18 minutes in diameter meaning it extends well to the south and east of my frame. NED lists what appear to be sub-clusters in it with similar distances. I've labeled them in the annotated image. While I didn't find a group name at NED there appears to be another galaxy cluster or group toward the southwestern part of my image at 1.48 billion light-years. Possibly part of this group is an object NED lists as both a quasar and a galaxy. It shows some size even at my resolution and seems way too faint for a quasar at that close range. But it may be well shielded by dust in the galaxy. Also part of this group is what may be an interacting pair near the southern edge of my field. Only ASK 379100.0 has redshift data so again another unanswered question.

This was taken one of the very few good nights I've had in over a year. I used to have them as the norm, not the exception. I hope this means things are getting better. I'll find out as I process more March images.

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

Related Designations for IC0620

IC0658

IC 658 is a strange galaxy between the rear legs of Leo the lion. It is classified as E+ pec by NED and S0/a? pec by Seligman. The pec (for peculiar) designation obviously relates to the odd eastern loop. This may trace the path of some dwarf galaxy it consumed in the recent past. Ignoring the loop the galaxy is about 90,000 light-years across, including the loop it is some 190,000 light-years across, more than doubling its size. Could ASK 270454.0 be the cause of the loop? It is about the same distance by redshift but I see no stream connecting it to IC 658. I found a total blank on this loop in the literature. Such an interesting galaxy without any interest in it, it appears. It was discovered by Stephane Javelle on April 19, 1893.

There are two other large spiral galaxies that appear to be members of IC 658's local group on the right side of my image, PGC 32939 and PGC 32943, both about 100,000 light-years across. Many other much smaller galaxies at their redshift are seen across the image. They are bright dwarf galaxies.

The only other major galaxy in the frame is PGC 32969 at 690 million light-years so not likely related to the IC 658 group. In angular size, it is about the same as the other two PGC galaxies but thanks to its greater distance is somewhat larger at 120,000 light-years across. It looks like a barred spiral but NED shows it as Sb rather than SBb I expected.

There are quite a few asteroids in the frame all but 5 were lost in my rather noisy skies this night. Oddly the fifth is listed by the Minor Planet Center at magnitude 20.7 which is fainter than several others that are lost in the noise. I doubt the magnitude estimate is correct so added a question mark in the annotated image.

Because conditions were poor I took 80 minutes of luminance data rather than my usual 40 minutes. Clouds prevented me from starting when I had hoped so I didn't get a chance to double up the color data before it moved too far west and I was fighting the light dome of a town 15 miles to the southwest of me as well as getting too low for good seeing. So fainter objects have rather weak color. Conditions got worse before the moon got in the way so I went with what I had.

FoF means the distance estimate is based on the Friend of a Friend method, likely the galaxy to the upper right of the one so marked. How accurate this is I don't know. I've had no experience with this distance estimate. If the distance is followed by a "p" that means it was determined photometrically. By use of the 7 photometric filtered images by the SLOAN survey, it is possible to estimate distance. I don't trust these as much as spectroscopic redshift measurements so have noted when they are used, usually with rather distant galaxies. Those denoted only by a G aren't in any catalogs except by their position which can clutter up an image when common. So I rarely use such designations. In this image, all so marked are fainter than 20th magnitude. I've included z values for objects that the look back distance is so large to be misleading. Besides the look back distance varies every time a new Hubble constants are determined while the z values remain constant.

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

Related Designations for IC0658

IC0673

IC 673 is a huge very low surface brightness galaxy in southern Leo less than a degree east of far more well known NGC 3521. Redshift puts it 190 million light-years distant while non-redshift measurements put it 220 to 260 million light-years distant. Since the smaller redshift distance still results in a galaxy that's over 200,000 light-years across I'll go with the smaller figure. NED and others show the galaxy as (R')SAB(rs)c with HII emission. It was discovered on April 22, 1892 by Stephane Javelle. NED shows what it calls a galaxy in a faint part of an arm on the southeastern side of the galaxy. They give it the same redshift as IC 673 which leads me to think it is just part of the galaxy, likely an HII star forming region given its NELG status which stands for Narrow Emission Line Galaxy. An HII region would most likely have narrow line emission thus I put a question mark after NELG indicating I'm not convinced it is a very small dwarf galaxy.

The field is full of Emission-Line Galaxies some are Narrow Line AGN's some Broad Line AGN, others are just listed as Emission-Line galaxies. Many of the latter lie at distances with a redshift value of 0.5 and greater. At these distances, the redshift (z) value is a better distance indicator than is the look back time distance I also show. There are so many of these down past 23rd magnitude that thanks to better transparency than I've had in a long time (but a bit below average seeing) show up in the image. At first, I was annotating them all then realized there were several hundred of these in the image and if I showed them all with z values the image would be so cluttered as to be nearly unreadable. So I stopped showing those fainter than 22nd magnitude. That still made things cluttered so I dropped to 21.5 magnitude. Since I labeled from the center out the fall off comes toward the edges.

A rather strange galaxy showed up north of IC 673. It is MGC 16639 at 380 million light-years. It might be a polar ring galaxy. I'd love to know what it looks like to the HST but so far no images are in the Hubble archive for it. In case you've forgotten MGC stands for the Millennium Galaxy Catalog. Galaxies without a catalog designation were only found in catalogs that use their position for the name. Those are so long that with the z values as well which many of those needed it wasn't reasonable to include them. Things were already so cluttered I had to resort to a bent line leading to the core of a galaxy cluster as a direct line I drew made some other objects information unreadable. I was constantly moving labels and redrawing lines to make this one readable so it took me almost three times as long as normal to create.

It was a good thing it was a good transparency night as 7 asteroids down to 22nd magnitude showed in the image. Though you'd be hard pressed to find them because all were right at the end of their retrograde motion and thus virtually motionless. Some moved only a couple seconds of arc during the 40 minutes luminance data was taken. Even the brightest at magnitude 19.5 barely shows but a very short trail. A couple were so short only one line was possible as they were only two pixels long to the lines just overlapped making one broad line when I tried to do that. Only one asteroid was named and it wasn't the brightest. Though you can't say that about the person it is named for. Here's the naming citation: "(32047) Wenjiali = 2000 JW28 Wenjia Dara Li (b. 1998) was awarded second place in the 2015 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for her plant sciences team project. She attends the Plano West Senior High School, Plano, Texas, U.S.A.

This is my first May image. I hope the two others taken this night went as deep. I was beginning to give up being able to catch things below 22nd magnitude again.

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

Related Designations for IC0673

IC0696

FGC 1253 and IC 696 are a couple of the members of the WBL 334 galaxy group which is part of the much larger ZwCl 1126.3+0913 galaxy cluster. NED lists WBL 334 as consisting of 6 members though I find as many as 10 in my image. The Zwicky galaxy cluster is listed as being 73 minutes across (about 4 times the area of my field, and containing 213 members. No way that only consists of those about 300 million light-years distant as NED seems to be saying. There aren't that many galaxies total under a billion light-years in that area of the sky. I'm a bit mystified by that count. Seems every galaxy group catalog has a different name and galaxy count for the group ranging from 5 to 7. I identify 10 between 280 and 340 million light-years in the annotated image with two being somewhat questionable.

IC 696 has a somewhat red condensation along with expected blue star clusters. The slightly orange one is listed in NED as a separate galaxy. There's no direct spectroscopic measurement of its redshift so the listed redshift of 300 million light-years is only based on the other galaxies in the area. It may lie far beyond for all I know. Its color would indicate it is not a star cluster in the galaxy. IC 2850 is a rather white galaxy but on the eastern side, there's a blue object. Another elongated blue object running under the core of IC 2850. The blue object carries its own designation though NED says it is part of IC 2850. I suppose that's possible but the redshift is slightly different and it seems far too large to be a star cluster in the galaxy. I can't shake the idea this is two galaxies just starting to interact. NED however disagrees and they are the expert.

IC 2853 to the upper right has two long faint plumes or drawn out arms. The northern one turns back after going further north than the bright field star curving to the west (right). The southern arm seems straight with no bend. It would appear it has interacted with some other member of the group to create these elongated arms.

The big galaxy in the upper left corner, NGC 3705, appears so much larger mainly because it is closer. Assuming a distance of 60,000 light-years it is some 85,000 light-years across. A bit larger than average for a spiral galaxy. However, flat galaxy FGC 2857 is some 186,000 light-years across. Twice the size of NGC 3705. However face on IC 696 is 86,000 light-years across, about the same size of NGC 3705. IC 2853 with its huge plumes is the largest at a tad over 200,000 light-years.

IC 696 and IC 698 were discovered by Rudolf Spitaler on March 31, 1892. IC 2850, IC 2853, IC 2857 and IC 2867 were discovered by Max Wolf on March 27, 1906. NGC 2850 is the discovery of Édouard Stephan on March 22, 1882.

There are three asteroids that wormed their way into the image. Their details are listed in the annotated image. Two of the three have names. Asteroid Belkin was discovered by the Russian astronomer L. V. Zhuravleva in 1982. It's naming citation reads: "Anatoly Pavlovich Belkin (b. 1953) is a prominent modern Russian painter. His pictures are shown in famous Russian and Western museums and galleries." Asteroid Mitchella was discovered in Heidelberg by A. Bohrmann in 1937. Name Citation of asteroids discovered this long ago are not listed at the Minor Planet Center as they are protected by the copyright of a book, I don't have, on early asteroid names. Asteroid 2000 WZ8 was discovered in late 2000 by W. K. Y. Yeung at Desert Beaver wherever that is.

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

Related Designations for IC0696

IC0700

There's so much going on in this image its hard to know where to start. The field lies just above the hindquarters and tail of Leo the Lion. My main target was IC 700 a very strange messed up blob of a galaxy. It is so messed up it is its own Hickson Compact Group being #54 on his list which he lists as 4 separate galaxies. So Does NED, the UGC and others. I've noted the four parts in the annotated image. Is it really 4 galaxies? Most sources consider it the result of a merger in progress but can't point to what constitutes the merged galaxies as they are too far along in the merger. Was each of the four parts Hickson and others point to a separate galaxy? I doubt it. Probably it is just two, parts 2 and 3 in the annotated image. The two end blue objects likely new star clouds formed by the merger though the differing redshift of the 4th object could say it is the second galaxy or even a third. I found nothing at all definitive about it. It is still holding onto its secrets. The mess lies about 80 million light-years distant by NED's redshift values though others put it at 70 million. I prefer the larger figure. Even then this mess is small with a diameter, including plumes of only 42,000 light-years. The mess was discovered on April 28, 1892 by Stephane Javelle.

There's a second Hickson group in the image. This one really does contain separate galaxies, 4 of them. It is Hickson 53 and is at the top of the image. The 4 members of the Hickson group are identified in the annotated image as NGC 3697, 3697B, 3697C and PGC 035381 off to the east. Surprisingly ASK 626124 to the west is not included, maybe it is too faint being a low surface brightness disk galaxy unclassified as far as I could find. This group is almost 4 times as far away at about 300 million light-years. That makes NGC 3697 a very large spiral at 210,000 light-years across. It was discovered by John Herschel on February 24, 1827. It's in neither of the Herschel 400 observing programs.

There's a very small but strange galaxy toward the right edge near the center-line, ASK 959185.0 at 480 million light-years. It appears to be a sloshed galaxy with its core on the far left side of the galaxy, a hole in the middle and two nearly merging blue star clouds on the right edge of the galaxy. Rings like this with the core pushed to one edge usually are caused by a direct hit by a small dense "bullet" galaxy. I see no "bullet" anyplace in the image. Unfortunately, at this distance, I can't see enough to be sure that this is such a ring galaxy but it sure looks like one. Also, it could be what I'm seeing as a core on the left is the "bullet" and the blue objects on the right are what remains of the core now creating stars like crazy. Again information on this galaxy was nil. Another possibly sloshed galaxy is ASK 626113.0 at 340 million light-years above and a bit right of the ring galaxy. Its core is well south of the center of its disk. Again no information on it was found.

Toward the lower left corner of the image there suddenly appears a ton of faint, nearly star-like galaxies. Part of this group is anchored by the Bright Cluster Galaxy (BCG) PGC 035445 with a redshift putting it about 1.6 billion light-years distant. I measure its size at about 300,000 light-years, a very large elliptical like galaxy. It is surrounded by many other galaxies most far smaller but ASK 626061.0 is another giant at 150,000 light-years, half the size of its neighbor. This group is listed at NED as WHL J113009.1+203054 with 46 members. It, in turn, is just part of the even larger Abell 1278 galaxy cluster which NED shows as 30 minutes across. It too is about 1.65 billion light-years distant. While the center is shown in the annotated image it appears few of its members are found in the western two thirds of this image. Instead, they are mostly in that lower left corner. How far they extend beyond the image I don't know. It is listed as being morphology class III which means it has no anchoring galaxy or galaxy and little condensation That too doesn't seem to agree with its position in my image. The cluster is said to be "group 3" as to number of galaxies which translates to 130 to 190 galaxies with the magnitude range of M3 to M3+2. OK, that too needs translation. M3 is the third brightest galaxy in the group. Thus it isn't a count of the galaxies and in fact, may include galaxies, not actual members but that fall within the magnitude range and are within the same line of sight. All this makes my head spin.

Several other galaxy groups and clusters are in the image. In most cases only the BCG is seen in my image with the rest too faint. Most have the same photographic redshift (designated with a "p" in my annotated image) so while the annotation reads GC/G only one magnitude is often given since it applies to both. In one case the cluster's distance was by photographic redshift but the BCG's distance was actual spectroscopic measurement and thus both are shown. In another case, they both had photographic redshifts but they weren't in agreement so again two are shown.

Now, this might appear to be a very deep image it really isn't. The night was very bright with both airglow and ice crystals in the air. I took the image at -40C with 3% power to the cooler as the ambient temperature was also nearly -40C. That causes moisture in the air to condense out as fine crystals that suspend on a still night. They really brighten the image and create a fog that spreads light from bright stars, especially blue stars, across large areas of the image. Fortunately, there was only one such star in this image so dealing with it wasn't as difficult as it usually is. All the other bright stars were rather red and fainter. Still, this was a better night than others in January, at least up to this point.

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

Related Designations for IC0700

IC0720

IC 720 is a double galaxy in northwest Virgo about 310 million light-years by redshift. Unfortunately, it has an identity problem. All agree IC 720 is the upper galaxy, NED and others say it is both. NED says the northern galaxy is also LEDA 93112 while most others say that is the southern galaxy and the northern is PGC 36333. Other combinations can be found in various sources. I went with both being IC 720 and the southern being PGC 93112 as that seems to be the most common way of referring to these two. Note the southern galaxy is somewhat bluer than its red companion to the north and shows a hint of spiral structure to the southwest. Several other galaxies also it the distance of IC 720 can be seen, mostly the northeast of it, including the spirals IC 722 and likely IC 724 among others.

Due to overlap, I can't measure the size of the two members of IC 720, just the combined size of 100,000 light-years. Based on color I assume the lower galaxy is somewhat in front of the northern galaxy. They were discovered by Rudolf Spitaler on March 25, 1892. Spitaler also discovered IC 722 the same night but confused as to the reference star got the position wrong. He also found IC 724 but on the previous night. Again using the same wrong reference star got the position wrong. This makes me wonder if all were found the same night, just that IC 724 was found before midnight. IC 722 is a bit over 100,000 light-years in size while IC 724 is twice as big at a bit over 200,000 light-years if the redshift distance is correct. Non-redshift measurements put it closer at 230 million light-years. That would reduce its size to a more reasonable 160,000 light-years.

There are many more galaxies in the image. I wish I had a better image of LEDA 4074690 that appears to be a member of IC 720's group. It is near the center of the image. What interests me is the core is very sloshed being well east of the galaxy's center. Is this due to an interaction with some other member of the group? I don't see any obvious candidates but for possibly IC 724 which looks a bit disturbed. With LEDA 4074690 being only about 37,000 light-years in size it wouldn't have much effect on the far larger IC 724.

There's another galaxy group in the image in the lower right corner at 1.30 billion light-years. Two asteroids are also in the image. (55053) 2001 QV68 at near 20th magnitude makes a very short trail to the right and a bit up from IC 722. The short trail indicates it is near the start or end of its retrograde motion. Much brighter (39429) Annebronte in the upper left corner makes a short vertical streak showing it is right at the end of its retrograde motion. Note both trails are very uneven showing how transparency varied from good to horrid several times during the 40 minutes luminance data was taken. The naming citation for it reads: "(39429) Annebrontë = 4223 T-2
Anne Brontë (1820-1849) was the third, last and least well known of the literary sisters from northern England."

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

Related Designations for IC0720

IC0749

IC 749 and 750 are a rather close pair of galaxies. IC 751 and 752 are a pair of galaxies possibly ten times further away. All are quite interesting. I'll start with the close pair.

Redshift puts them some 40 to 50 million light-years distant though other distance measurements put them 70 to 150 million light-years distant. Most sources are preferring the redshift distances. I looked at an NIC camera image of IC 749 which showed few stars. That would indicate the more distant estimates. However other sources say the stars start to resolve at magnitude 22 which would argue for the nearer distance. The galaxy is very blue so is full of young super hot stars. Most of which haven't as yet turned to red giants. This could mean there aren't many IR bright stars in the first place. One note at NED indicates these are definitely interacting. Others make no mention of interaction. Another question which is at issue. Visual light doesn't seem to show any interaction. Assuming a distance of 45 million light-years the projected separation of these two (assuming the same distance to both) would be only 26 thousand light-years. I'd expect rather strong interaction if this were true. Since none is seen I doubt they are as close as they appear. At the distance of 45 million light-years, these are rather small galaxies with both being about 27,000 light-years across. If the larger distances are assumed then IC 749 is almost 90,000 light-years across and IC 750 41,000 light-years across.

The color contrast of the two is striking. IC 750 hasn't had much star formation in billions of years judging by its mostly red color but is a very dusty galaxy indicating it could create quite a few stars under the right conditions and turn blue if it as an equivalent amount of hydrogen. Only its outer disk has a blue tinge to it. To me, it shows a lot of detail for a red spiral. Could the red color be due to dust reddening rather than stellar aging? Maybe some of both? I found nothing on its stellar spectra which would help answer this question. For now, we can just enjoy this highly contrasting pair of galaxies. This pair was discovered by Rudolf Spitaler on May 18, 1892.

IC 751 and 752 lie about 425 million light-years distant by redshift. Again we have a face on blue spiral and a somewhat red highly tilted galaxy. Both have interesting but hard to explain internal structure. IC 751 may be rather red but it has a Seyfert 2 core so is very active. IC 752 has a very weird spiral structure with one well defined arm and the other virtually invisible with lots of blue star masses. If the distance is assumed to be 425 million light-years then IC 751 is 130,000 light-years across and IC 752 just under 90,000 light-years across. That makes them a lot larger than the first pair. Note the somewhat detached arc of stars at the southern end of IC 751. It almost looks like the tidal plume of a galaxy torn apart as it was devoured by IC 751. Could one of those bright blobs be the remains of this doomed dwarf galaxy? I'd love to see both of these at HST resolution. This pair was also found by Rudolf Spitaler but nearly a month later on May 18, 1892.

Another interesting galaxy is KUG 1155+428. A nice two arm spiral with a bright knot at the end of the shorter arm. Is this a star cloud or a separate galaxy. NED offers no enlightenment. The Sloan survey apparently considers it part of the galaxy.

The annotated image shows the classifications of the major galaxies and distances to all that NED had data for. Distances in parentheses are the median value of non-redshift distance estimates at NED.

While seeing was better than average for this image I again lost a lot due to clouds. Though three of the 4 luminance subs were taken under very good skies the 4th was poor. I included it, though I doubt it helped or hurt the final image. With basically three subs my noise level is higher than normal but good seeing seems to have compensated nicely. Color data was a disaster. The color taken after the luminance was worthless. A second night and a third night and a fourth night also failed to get color data. Finally a month later I got my usual 2 color frames. Unfortunately, something went wrong, clouds apparently, and the second round of color was nearly blank! Only the brightest stars showed with nasty cloud type fog around them. Normally the cloud sensor would have shut me down so I suspect a cloud bank sat over this field but was small so didn't trip the cloud sensor. The result is I got only one usable 10 minute frame for each color and didn't know it until I went to process the image. But again, good seeing and good transparency for that first round seem to have saved the image. Many of this year's images with two 10 minute color frames were far worse in signal to noise ratio than these single 10 minute frames. I was amazed how well this turned out for only 30 minutes of color data. Maybe this is all I need on good nights? I like 2 as that allows me to remove satellite trails without cloning them out. Fortunately, no satellites made an appearance for the color frames. Two did for the luminance frames. One I left in as it is very hard to see. Where the other was removed there's only two good stacked luminance images plus the very poor one. Even that didn't seem to increase the noise level in the area of the trail when it was removed.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' (effectively only 3x10' and 1x2') RGB=1x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for IC0749

IC0849

IC 0849 is a SAB(rs)cd pec? face on spiral galaxy in central Virgo about 260 million light-years distant by redshift and 300 million by analysis of a type II super nova's light. It has a rather ragged appearance with its arms made up star clusters. At first glance the nucleus appears off center but when the faint outer arms are considered it is seen that it really is in the center. It appears to have several companions with similar redshift including IC 850 which is an edge on galaxy classed as Sd pec. Oddly no dust lane is seen in it as is usually the case with edge on spirals of its classification. Several dwarf galaxies at the same redshift can be seen in the field including LEDA 1130374 and LEDA 1133258 and the very small 2dFGRS N258Z049.

IC 0849 and 0850 were discovered by Stephane Javelle on May 10, 1893 at Nice Observatory using their 30" refractor. He discovered more IC objects than any astronomer with more than 1400 to his credit. They were #757 and #758 on his list. I measure IC 0849 at about 100,000 light-years across making it similar to our galaxy in size. IC 0850 is a bit over 75,000 light-years across. But 2dFGRS N258Z049 is only about 10,000 light-years in size.

I moved IC 849 a bit west to make room for CGCG 016-007 a narrow line AGN at almost the same redshift as IC 849. But it was larger than I expected or I didn't move as much as I thought. Whatever, I managed to cut its eastern side off. Fortunately, it is rather featureless but that made it impossible for me to get an accurate size estimate. It probably is slightly larger than IC 849.

It appears there are quite a few galaxies in the image at a distance of about 1.14 billion light-years though I found no cluster at that distance listed at NED with a center within my image frame. I didn't look beyond it, however.

I took the luminance data on a night of fair seeing and took the color data a few nights later when seeing wasn't up to doing luminance data. I often get away with that technique but in this case, a really bright asteroid Moskva photobombed the luminance data. Since it was long gone by the time I took the color data there's no color trail around it as there'd be if I'd taken all data the same night. Moskva is Russian for Moscow in case you were wondering where that name originated. The asteroid was discovered on April 20, 1914 at Simeis (Simeiz) Observatory in Crimea. It was discovered by Grigory Nikolayevich Neujmin who found 74 asteroids and 7 comets. Moskva was his 11th asteroid. His last came in 1939 Another asteroid discovered by Prasjivhta Parchomenko at the observatory in 1929 was named for him as was a lunar crater.

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

Related Designations for IC0849

IC0997

IC 997 is a pair of interacting galaxies in eastern Virgo about 330 million light-years distant. It is composed of PGC 51220 a Sc? pec spiral according to Seligman and PGC 1057935, an S? pec spiral again by Seligman. The pair was discovered by Lewis Swift on May 16, 1892. NED says identification is not certain while Seligman says it is certain. Flip a coin. It appears to me that PGC 51220 is in front of PGC 1057935 though both have the about the same redshift. Both have plumes. I measure PGC 51220 at about 120,000 light-years across and PGC 1057935 at 85,000 light-years.

To the northeast is IC 998 also found by Swift the same night as IC 997. NED doesn't try to classify it though it is an obvious spiral. Seligman says Sa? NED says its identification as IC 998 is "not at all certain." An even stronger caution than for IC 997 while Seligman says "... identification seems certain." Flip that coin yet again. It is about 325 million light-years distant by redshift though I suspect it is a member of the same local group as IC 997. I measure its size as about 85,000 light-years same as PGC 1057935. It was right at Swift's detection level it would seem as he says of it: "..."most extremely faint, small, round, very difficult". So he was seeing only the core region which isn't surprising.

The other IC galaxy in the image is IC 4401 also found by Lewis Swift but years later on September 16, 1896. NED says (now don't get ahead of me here): "The IC identification is not certain." While Seligman says: "...the description and reference to IC 997 fit perfectly, so the identification is certain." OK, you were ahead of me. In this case, however, there's another issue. Dreyer credits the discovery, not to Swift but to Howe in 1860. So why is Swift given the credit? Wish I knew. Seligman has a note to himself to discuss this history but hasn't as yet that I find. It too is a member of the IC 997 group. I measure it as the largest member at 158,000 light-years in size. A very large spiral.

The other major galaxy in the image and also a likely member of the group is MCG -01-37-002 another obvious spiral but I can't find any classification for it but didn't look very hard. It seems to have a large blue star cloud at its northeastern end. I measure its size as 105,000 light-years, about the size of our galaxy.

If you look around the annotated image you will find several dwarf galaxies also at about 330 million light-years that are likely members of the group. There's also one asteroid identified in the annotated image to the north of IC 997. Note its trail has one sort of bright spot. This shows the very poor skies I had. At magnitude 18.4 it should be big and bright with the three color trails being obvious as well. They don't even register. I was losing about 2 magnitudes to clouds this night but they varied to even worse SOME of the time. This is why the trail has varied intensities. Never coming close to what it should be. There were several other asteroids in the image that should have been seen easily. One faintly is seen in the luminance FITS but so faint I didn't try to point it out. The others didn't register at all.

Also, this field is just north of the working belt of geostationary satellites. Non-working ones are moved out 100 miles when retired and shut down usually out of fuel. They then develop slightly tilted orbits so move a bit north and south of the belt. Those satellites are quite plentiful after all these years. I had at least one, usually two in every frame but one. Plus several not related to the belt which I almost always have. Bad conditions likely hid even more of them. With too few frames for sigma rejection stacking these were a processing nightmare. I need to avoid the belt and 2 degrees either side or expect this.

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

Related Designations for IC0997

IC0999

This is an image of the 4 galaxy group USGC U613, also known as UZC-CG 213. It consists of IC 999, IC 1000, PGC 051190 and PGC 051238 but not PGC 051208. Since PGC 051208 is in a line with the two IC galaxies I assumed it was a member. But while it is at the same redshift distance it didn't make either group. Apparently, at magnitude 16.0, it was too faint. The 4 members are magnitude 14.86, 14.67, 15.5 and 15.1 respectively according to NED. IC 999 and IC 1000 were discovered by Stephane Javelle on June 23, 1892.

The group and other members of the same local group are about 260 to 270 million light-years distant by redshift. They are located in Bootes, just 1.6 degrees southeast of Arcturus. The annotated image lists all galaxies and quasars NED had redshift data on. Also included is an object noted as RCQ for Rejected Candidate Quasar. Though in another place NED shows it as an actual quasar. Also, the redshift apparently is by spectroscopic means as NED usually notes when other methods are used. Since that puts it nearly 12 billion light-years distant, if right, what else could I detect at that distance? Also, I picked up one asteroid listed by NED as being a calculated 19.7 magnitude. That appears to agree with my data though I'd put it a couple tenths of a magnitude brighter.

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

Related Designations for IC0999