IC1454

IC 1454/Abell 81 is the northernmost of the Abell planetary nebula located in Cepheus only 9.56 degrees from the pole. There's a wide range of distance values for this one. I'll go with the one at http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?2004MNRAS.353..589P&db_key=AST&nosetcookie=1
which puts it a bit over 17,000 light-years away. It was discovered by William Denning on August 9, 1891.

It is about 38" of arc across. Catalogs list it at 14 and 15th magnitude with an 18.8 magnitude central star. Other than this I can't find much on it. Even less on the field. Only a few of the galaxies are in NED, none have much data let alone redshift data. Thus I didn't prepare an annotated image. This lack of data is common for far northern objects.

For a list of all Abell planetary (and a few that aren't really planetary nebulae) see: http://www.astronomy-mall.com/Adventures.In.Deep.Space/abellcat.htm

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

Related Designations for IC1454

IC1470

Astronomers have created quite a Tower of babble when it comes to designating objects. Most carry a lot of different catalog designations. Major objects are in major catalogs and those are the "names" usually used. When it comes to the lesser known objects it is more confusing. For instance, today's update features IC 1470. Not a commonly imaged IC object, few would recognize the designation. Nor does that help tell what type of object it is as the IC catalog covers every type of visible light object. It is also known as Sh2-156. This is more helpful as these are all nebula, usually ones with strong H alpha emission (reddish-pink in most "real" color images).

Here I must confess the Tower or Babel reached out and bit me. My June 17, 2010 update featured Sh2-156 and other nebula in the field. Also on the list of things to image was IC 1470. Yes, they are one and the same, but when you are imaging these months apart and they come from two different lists you checked for duplicates by name but not by Tower of babble standards this happens. It was only after I finished processing it I realized it looked awfully familiar. But I do have a year's more experience processing images and the colors are better on the new version. Since the camera was rotated differently I didn't combine the data as it would have limited the field. I could have just gone on to the next object but I went to the work to process it so here it is. Rather than redo the text I'm just rerunning that. Also, I'm reusing the annotated image so you can see the old processing as well as the new. It was done at lower resolution to preserve bandwidth since all objects are quite large, unlike many of my galaxy images where they are only a few pixels in size in some cases.

To illustrate the designation problem here are some of the other designations for IC 1470:
GPSR 110.109+0.047
SH 2-156
[WWB83] G110.11+0.05
EQ 2303+5958
IRAS 23030+5958
WB89 240
GAL 110.11+00.04
IRCO 838
[KC97c] G110.1+00.0
GAL 110.11+00.05
KR 72
[L89b] 110.106+00.044
2MASX J23050983+6014560
TXS 2303+599
87GB 230304.2+595825
87GB[BWE91] 2303+5958
[WB92] 2303+5958
NVSS J230510+601438
[ZHB90] G110.109+00.047
[GMT2008] IR 23030

Besides the IC 1470 entry, the only other duplicate at both NED and Simbad was [KC97c] G110.1+00.0! All the rest are found at only one of the two sources. A Tower of babble indeed.

Sh2-156 is also IC 1470 (That statement alone should have caused me to remove IC 1470 from the list but I was too dense it seems). Galaxy Map is normally a good source for info on these but it seems confused. It gives a distance of precisely 4891 parsecs (15,300 light years) then says it is estimated to be 3500 to 4000 parsecs away (11,400 to 13000 light years). Then goes on to say it is part of the star cluster NGC 7510. Huh? The cluster is about 8 tenths of a degree northeast of the nebula and about 10,000 light years distant. Parts of Sharpless 2-157 (8000 light years) do extend into the field with NGC 7510 but certainly, Sh2-156 does not. First to discover it was Rudolf Spitaler on March 20, 1892.

There are many other fuzz patches in the field. SIMBAD only identified the brighter ones. I've prepared an annotated image of these. Most carry very unfamiliar designations. The BF catalog is one of HII regions, GN is a reflection nebula catalog. BDS denotes a star cluster. One small fuzz patch that is HII to the south and reflection to the north was centered on the position of an IR source found by IRAS. I don't know if the nebula is the optical counterpart to what IRAS was seeing or not. If so IRAS probably was looking at new stars buried in dust and gas that don't show visually. Some of the HII regions come through blue in my image. I'm guessing they have a reflection component as well as HII and my chip, being rather red insensitive, is seeing the reflection part better than the HII.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL=11000XM, Paramount ME (first version only had one green and one blue frame but two red frames)

The first image of this object posted June 2010 was taken on November 15, 2009. I took this on August 9, 2010.

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

Related Designations for IC1470

IC1478

NGC 7594/IC 1478 is an enormous spiral galaxy in Pegasus, just below the Great Square. It is about 470 million light-years distant. To be so large in my image at nearly a half billion light-years it has to be big, about 205,000 miles in diameter as seen in my image. Unfortunately, the night was very poor and it likely is even larger. IC 5305 at 460 million light-years is a likely companion. The distance difference is likely quite small, just that their relative motion makes the redshift distance larger than it really is. NED shows it part of a three galaxy group WBL 706. Obviously, IC 5305 is one of those two other galaxies but I can't determine which is the third.

Below these two is the flat galaxy 2MFGC 17488 at 530,000 million light-years. Well to the west is another galaxy, KUG 2315+100 that is also about 530 million light-years distant. They are likely related but if part of the WBL 706 group that's 4 not three. Plus IC 5307 near 2MFGC 17488 is at 540,000 million light-years. But no three galaxy group at that distance is shown in NED.

2MFGC 17488 appears to be a companion of IC 5306 but it is 200 million light-years further away so they are just a chance alignment rather than a true pair though many catalogs list them as pairs.

NED shows only these galaxies with redshift data. Since there were only a few other galaxies even listed in NED I went ahead and noted them in the annotated image even though they had no redshift. All were from the 2MASS catalog of IR galaxies. That is likely why the blue galaxies in the image, marked by question marks, while bright, aren't listed. They just don't have the IR emissions to make the 2MASS catalog.

The quality of the night was very poor. Much is lost I'm sure. The evidence for this is the lone asteroid shown in the image (135118) 2001 QT117. It shows at two places in the image rather than a constant trail as these normally do. This is because clouds were so bad only 2 of the 4 frames used showed the asteroid at all. 4 others taken between these were even worse than the two I used that didn't show it. This explains the broken trail. The color frames were very poor as well with many of them thrown out. Two blue ones were fair and were used. All green and red were very poor but I picked the two best for each. Thus the color is somewhat questionable. I did have to make a large reduction in the blue channel to get decent color. It still may be too blue.

It was discovered first by Andrew Common in August of 1880. This was listed as NGC 7594. Guillaume Bigourdan found it on August 22, 1889 resulting in the IC 1478 listing.

One known casualty of the clouds was the plume on 2MASS J23183301+1014088, east of IC 5307. It has a plume to the east that is only faintly seen in my image. On a reasonable night, it would have come through quite well.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10' (due to clouds less than half that many photons captured), STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for IC1478

IC1495

IC 1495/5327 is a peculiar galaxy in southeastern Aquarius. It is about 270 million light-years by redshift and 260 million light-years by Tully-Fisher measurements, a very good agreement. I measure it at about 108,000 light years in size. It is too low for me except on a great night. Unfortunately, none of the three nights I tried for it were close. Turned out the first night was the only one to generate usable frames for luminance but color frames were better other nights. It's classified as SAB(r)b pec: with an Sy2 nucleus. Located in the Zone of Avoidance it is in a very poorly studied area as to galaxies. Often the pec status and an active nucleus are indications of a recent interaction with another galaxy. Could the diffuse blob to the south-southwest be the cause? I can't even find a listing for it in NED. The MCG just refers to it as a diffuse companion yet doesn't include it. NED lists redshift for only three other galaxies, a bright spherical galaxy near the right edge of my image which is at about 900 million light-years and a very faint Emission Line Galaxy near the top. It must really be very bright for me to see it at over 8 billion light-years. At the bottom right is a pair of possibly interacting galaxies but only the western one (on the right) has a redshift available. Without a distance indicator for both, there's no way to prove they aren't just two unrelated galaxies that happen to be along our line of sight.

IC 1495/5327 galaxy was first discovered by Stephane Javelle on November 3, 1891 and listed as IC 1495. Edward Barnard also found it (date unknown but in the 1890's) resulting in the IC 5327 listing.

I'd not have prepared an annotated image but for the 7 asteroids in the image. The one named asteroid's name citation read: "(31584) Emaparker = 1999 FG31: Ema Linnea Parker (b. 1998) was awarded second place in the 2014 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for her electrical and mechanical engineering team project. She attends the Wasatch Academy, Mount Pleasant, Utah, U.S.A."

I'd not have even processed this one but for the 7 asteroids. There were several others in the frame that should have shown easily under typical skies but were lost in the gunk I was imaging through. Another that needs a reshoot that likely won't happen.

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

Related Designations for IC1495

IC1508

IC 1508 is a somewhat distorted spiral galaxy in southeastern Pegasus about 180 million light-years distant. NED classifies it as Sdm: and Sdm by Seligman. What drew me to it was the odd bright cloud on the western side. In the Sloan image, it is very blue using their photometric filters which assign Uv to blue along with blue and green. Without Uv and with green not included in the blue data it comes out rather white in true RGB colors. I assume the Uv is due to super hot blue stars in the star cloud. Since such stars live only a few million years this cloud is likely rather young. I found virtually nothing on this galaxy and nothing at all on the source of the cloud. Including the faint plume to the north and faint short ones to the south, it is about 93,000 light-years in size. Plumes may indicate some sort of interaction in the past or even a late stage merger.

One asteroid appeared in the image. It is (20411) 1998 QJ69 which the Minor Planet Center says was magnitude 18.1 when the image was taken.

This area of the sky is very poorly studied as to galaxies. This is the only galaxy in the field with redshift data so no annotated image was prepared. My software said the 4th luminance frame was out of focus. After refocusing it retook the fourth frame. While it was very slightly out of focus including it helped the image a bit and filled in a gap in the asteroid trail. So I included all 5 in this image.

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

Related Designations for IC1508

IC1551

IC 1551 makes the previous posts galaxy NGC 765, at 250,000 light-years, seem a dwarf. IC 1551, located in Pisces at a distance of some 570,000 million light-years, is 421,000 light-years end to end thanks to its huge plume like arms. In fact, they are likely plumes. The core has two major orange parts and a smaller one as well as a complex blue object. The latter seems made of at least two star groups, one on the west much larger than the one on the east. All this would seem to indicate we have a major smashup in progress here with the cores "close" to merging. Unfortunately, it hasn't attracted the interest of any major scope so what is going on here is just my speculation that fits what we see. It was discovered by Stephane Javelle on November 12, 1903.

While it isn't seen in the processed image the luminance FITS show hints the southern arm turns back north in what from our perspective is a nearly straight north path. I suspect it highly curved and increasing its distance from the core. It's just that our perspective distorts it greatly. This would make a great target for those putting many hours into an image to bring out faint plumes like this galaxy appears to have.

Like the last post, this is a very lonely galaxy which makes the smashup idea a bit surprising. Still, I think it the best explanation for its appearance. At least until major scopes take an interest. I wonder if it represents what the Antenna Galaxies (Arp 244) will look like in a hundred million years.

Due to a programming error, I got only one blue frame the night I took this image. I had to return on an inferior night to get a second blue frame. Since the night was poor I took two so ended up with 3 blue frames but only 2 for the other colors.

One other note. Normally when I calculate the size of a galaxy I just use the redshift distance. While the universe did expand some causing the light travel time to be greater than the distance at the time the light left it, this difference is usually immaterial. In this case, it is starting to get material. If I'd have used the light travel time distance its size would have been about 8,000 light-years greater than I state since I used the angular size distance which estimates its distance when the light left that we see. Time doesn't shrink the image, just reddens and dims it slightly so we see it at the angular size it was when the light left it when it was closer to us than the light travel time indicates. Applying that size to the light travel time distance makes it appear larger than it really is. An issue I've never felt it necessary to compensate for before.

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

Related Designations for IC1551

IC1613

IC 1613 is important as it was used to calibrate the cepheid yardstick. Cepheid variable stars have a brightness that is directly related to the time it takes them to go from one maximum brightness to the next. By measuring this we know its true brightness. Compare that to its apparent brightness and you have a direct measure of its distance, once you allow for confounding factors like dimming due to dust. The problem is no cepheids are close enough to us for us to know their real distance by trigonometry though Hipparcos has now helped the error bar is still rather large. Cepheids are known as standard candles as they shine with a known brightness. There are other types of standard candles. Many of these could be seen in this galaxy along with Cepheid variables. This allowed early astronomers to finally calibrate the Cepheid "standard". Since Cepheids could be seen out a lot farther than this, galaxy this allowed astronomers to estimate the distance to many more galaxies. Now after all of this, you'd expect the distance to this galaxy to be known very well. Maybe it is but I found no two sources that gave the same distance. SEDS gives a distance of 2.9 million light-years (a bit farther than M31, the Andromeda Galaxy), another source gave. One rather new paper I found pegged the distance at 2.38+/- 0.07 million light years. That's a bit closer than M31 Since it gives an error bar that is rather small I'll assume that is about right. It is located in Cetus the whale so nowhere near M31 in the sky and unrelated to it. But its location put it out over the lake and not all that high up when I took this shot. It was taken one of the few "clear" nights we have had in early December. But being over the lake the sky is full of ice that reflects starlight. Some is deflected directly to the scope, but the worst part of the glow comes from starlight reflecting off the lake's huge white surface and going back up to hit the ice. That backscattering is very bright raising my noise level by a factor of 10. I might as well be imagining with a bright moon in the sky. By using 7 luminosity frames rather than the normal 4 I reduced this noise some but it was still a big problem and was about 4 times normal even after using the extra frames. Still, I was able to image a few of the HII bubbles in this galaxy. In shots taken at major observatories, you see bubbles all over the galaxy. Due to the ice, I only got a few of them. The SEDS article is at:
http://www.seds.org/~spider/spider/LG/i1613.html

At least my shot came out a heck of a lot better than the shot they used. It was discovered by Max Wolf in September 1906.

Note the many distant galaxies are seen through and around this dwarf galaxy. You'll note the stars are a lot fuzzier in this image. My seeing in winter is really bad, especially when there's ice in the air. By working high overhead I can get better stars but unfortunately, most objects don't cooperate by being high in the sky. When the object is down near the celestial equator the blur begins to get really bad. Unfortunately, that's where this guy is.

This is a very early image of mine. It was taken when I had poor technique and when my processing tools and skills to use them was limited. This is yet another that I need to retake but so far the skies haven't cooperated.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=7x10' RGB=1x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for IC1613

IC1795

This object has two names which refer to different parts of it. How it is divided varies by the source you use. NGC 896 most consider the right end and brightest part of the nebula, The rest is IC 1795. Some say the dark vertical lane is the divide but most put the IC nebula as centered on the brighter part east (left) of the bright western end. Together some call it the Fish Nebula though I've also heard the more course Butt Crack Nebula used. Both are part, very west end, of the huge Heart Nebula, IC1805. Though this was taken with a rather bright moon in the sky which causes some problems it came out rather well anyway. For a wide field shot showing all of the Heart Nebula with these two coming off the bottom see: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap061003.html for an image taken by a fellow who images in the summer not far from me in the Cross Lake Area about a 75 minute drive from here. He's been at digital photography many more years than me and has an apparently unlimited budget. His wide field shot was taken with a small 4" scope that cost more than what my 14" cost and is about the cheapest one he owns. Note the very uneven star density across this image indicating there is a lot of dark obscuring matter we don't see in this image. Don't confuse this with "Dark Matter" that is thought to constitute most of the universe's matter. That is perfectly transparent so can't hide stars. The dark matter that obscures stars is mostly interstellar dust and gas. Very ordinary stuff that when pushed together by gravity formed our sun and planets including the earth.

NGC 896 was discovered by William Herschel on November 3, 1787. It is in the second H400 observing program. IC 1795 was discovered by Edward Barnard sometime in the late 1890's as best as can be determined from his records which were poor in this respect. Why I took so many green and blue frames is lost to history. Apparently, I'm not much better than Barnard was with dates. I'm assuming the bright moon is to blame plus my ignorance of how to deal with it at this early stage of my imaging career.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=8x10' R=2x10' G=4x10' B=5x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for IC1795

IC1871

IC 1871 is best known as the Soul nebula. Why it is called that when it best resembles an infant I don't know. It is far larger than my field and something I'd normally not take. But this image was made when I still was learning digital imaging and working in mono. I had color filters but not the knowledge to use them correctly. This was taken in H alpha light which such nebula shine the brightest in. It is centered on the infant's rather distorted "face". At this resolution, it looks rather grotesque. The nebula is located in Cassiopeia, right next to one known as the Heart Nebula. Between the two are the two Maffei galaxies, thought for years to be additional emission nebula rather than heavily obscured massive galaxies. IC 1871 was discovered by Edward Barnard in the late 1890's. That's about as close as anyone has been able to pin down the time of his discovery and even that is sometimes questioned. That Barnard found it is not the issue, just the date. It is thought to be about 6,500 light-years distant. The entire nebula can be seen here: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160228.html

14" LX200R @ f/10, Ha=3x30', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for IC1871

IC2162

This field contains five emission nebulae. From upper right to lower left they are SH2-254, the largest and lowest surface brightness nebula; SH2-256, the small nebula below the middle of the three main nebulae; SH2-257, the middle of the three main nebulae; SH2-255/IC 2162 the brightest of the three and only one to make the IC catalog. The smallest is SH2-257 and is more white than pink. All are members of the Sharpless catalog of emission nebula. SH2-255 was discovered earlier as IC 2162 by Edward Barnard sometime in the late 1890's. The tiny orange object between SH2-257 and and Sh2-255 is listed at SIMBAD as Sh2-255 IRS 2, a Young Stellar Object. These are illuminated parts of the GEM OB1 molecular cloud though this field is in Orion. The distance to these is hard to pin down. About the best I can do is say 6500 light-years with an error bar of a couple thousand light-years.

This was an early image of mine when I had my system set up in a way that let in a lot of stray light. Turned out an opaque black plug I was using was surprisingly transparent to IR light. While my chip is IR insensitive it still managed to fog the image with a strong gradient. I didn't have the ability to deal with this at the time nor track down the source. I lost a lot of nebulosity due to this issue. I'm reproducing this one at 1.5" per pixel due to this problem.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=8x10'x2 RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for IC2162