IC2177

This is the head of the Seagull Nebula. I'd need many fields to cover this one. I settled on its head. One estimate of its distance is about 3,650 light-years. Its located in southern Monoceros almost on the border with Canis Major. It is also known as Sh2-292. It was discovered by Isaac Roberts sometime in 1898.

This is another image taken before I really knew how to combine H alpha data with color data. For some reason, I use the H alpha data for red then green and blue for the other colors. Since stars emit little H alpha light the stars tend to be cyan in color. They need broadband red to get their color right. Also using H alpha for the luminance data blue reflection nebula are lost. So this is another early image I should, but likely won't reshoot, just ignore the cyan stars my ignorance created.

14" LX200R @ f/10, Ha=2x30' GB=3x5', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for IC2177

IC2184

Markarian 8/IC 2184 is a pair of colliding galaxies in Camelopardalis about 160 million light-years distant. It may look like it consists of 3 or 4 galaxies, but this is due to my lack of resolution. The Hubble space telescope has looked at this one. I did a quick and dirty process of a mono image I found at the Hubble Legacy site rotated to closely match my image's orientation. It shows it is just two interacting galaxies in which the interaction has created several bright star clouds in the debris field of the collision. It appears the action is just beginning with the major wreck still well into the future. The CGCG says of it "Triple system in halo." While the CGPG says: "Blue post-eruptive quadruple of 2 bar-shaped and 2 spherical compacts." So I don't feel bad that it does appear to be 3 or 4 objects in my image. Those authors apparently had little better resolution than I do to work with. Markarian seems to have the most accurate description: "Two tightly merged double galaxies. Seems to be a nest of blue objects." He seems to realize it is only 2 galaxies though doesn't seem to desire to speculate what the rest of the blue objects are in that nest. NED classifies both as S?

This is a very barren section of sky for galaxies. That two galaxies would collide in such an empty region of space seems highly unlikely, yet it did happen. They even appear to be of about the same size. No other galaxy in the image has any distance data at NED. NED only lists 11 galaxies in my field omitting one of the brightest, a blue smudge of a galaxy near the top a bit left of center. Hundreds of faint background galaxies are missed as well.

This object was suggested to me by Sakib Rasool. It was discovered by Guillaume Bigourdan on January 24, 1900.

The Luminance frames were taken binned 1x1 for a resolution of 0.5" per pixel. Color data was binned 2x2, my usual bin mode. The seeing wasn't quite up to 0.5". This one needs a night better than I get even on the best of nights.

I've included a simple process of an HST image of this pair to show a bit more detail than I could catch.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x20'x1 RGB=3x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for IC2184

IC2233

IC 2233/FGC 2233 is an edge on very flat galaxy in central Lynx about 40 light-years distant by Tully-Fisher measurements. Redshift, which isn't all that reliable this close says 32 million light-years. It appears to lack any central bulge. NED classifies it as SB(s)d: sp HII. I imagine the blue star clouds are where the HII emission is coming from. Seligman says SB(s)d?. While there's no obvious core what appears to be its core is to just below two star clouds near its center. If so the core is off center and "below" the center of the galaxy. It was discovered by Isaac Robers on March 25, 1894.

About 10 minutes east of the north end is the large elliptical galaxy MCG +08-15-055. It marks the core of the galaxy cluster SDSS-C4-DR3 3529 at a distance of 560 million light years. NED lists it as having 19 members but no diameter so I can't tell which galaxies are members and which aren't.

Oddly, while the image area is covered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey only one galaxy in it has a redshift of over a billion light years. It likely is more because few redshifts of this field were determined than a lack of such galaxies. It is SDSS J081320.52+454534.5 a very red elliptical looking galaxy of magnitude 19.3 and with a redshift that puts it some 2.9 billion light-years away. To find it locate the blue star west (right) of IC 2233. Continue west an inch or two depending on monitor size to a trio of reddish galaxies in a flat triangle, the middle much bigger and brighter. It is the one that's 2.9 billion light-years away. No redshift is provided for its "companions". They are listed at magnitudes 20.7 and 21.2 left to right to give you an indication of the depth of the image.

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

Related Designations for IC2233

IC2248

IC 2248 is a spiral galaxy that reminds me of M94 and other galaxies with an outer ring that usually appears detached from the inner structure. In this case, there seems to be a red dusty area between the two so it isn't as detached as M94 and the others. A note at NED says "Elliptical red object with a faint satellite." Apparently, they are seeing it as an elliptical galaxy. NED doesn't try to classify it. I assume the faint "satellite" is SDSS J081605.62+230814.4 as it is the brightest of several galaxies apparently seen through the faint outer ring. I've annotated several others. I covered one up with a label so won't try to point to it. But is it a "satellite"? There's no redshift data for it so no way to know. More likely it is the brightest of many distant background galaxies.

East of IC 2248 is the blue spiral KUG 0813+232, though again NED fails to try and classify it. The only note at NED says it is "diffuse and irregular". Yet its spiral structure is very evident. It is also peculiar in the sense the arms are very unequal with the northern one at first appearing short and stubby but a closer look shows it to continue as a faint arm halfway around the galaxy and thus much longer than the south arm. That arm has a sudden kink to the right. It would appear it has interacted with something. IC 2248 has a similar redshift so could be the culprit. Is that why IC 2248 has that ring?

IC 2247 is the edge on spiral to the northeast of IC 2248. Its redshift is virtually the same as other two though when rounded to 2 significant digits as I do in the annotated image the difference appears slightly larger than it really is. NED classifies it as Sc one place and Sbc another. With an edge on like this classification is very difficult so the two aren't all that surprising. Its disk appears rather reddened with only a hint of strong blue at the very tips. The core appears rather reddened by dust. Maybe the rest of the disk is as well.

Both galaxies were discovered by Max Wolf on January 9, 1901.

A bit above and left of center is a distant galaxy cluster SDSSCGB 00240 and the very red galaxy SDSSCGB 00240.02. NED lists the cluster as containing 4 members. There are about 8 in the area including the much larger SDSSCGB 00240.01 just to its north. Only the cluster and SDSSCGB 00240.02 have redshift data putting both about 4.2 billion light-years away. I doubt SDSSCGB 00240.01 is really a member of the group but without redshift data, this is pure speculation.

At the lower left is another cluster GMBCG J124.20497+23.00005 anchored by the bright cluster galaxy GMBCG J124.20497+23.00005 BCG. It is at 4.5 billion light years and contains 12 galaxies though I see only a few on the raw FITS file and only three or four on the final image (look very hard to find those).

There are two asteroids in the image. The brightest is (47002) Harlingten at an estimated magnitude of 18.5. The naming citation reads: "Caisey Harlingten (b. 1947) is an amateur astronomer interested in various scientific projects. With a keen interest in exoplanets, he is developing astronomical instrumentation in northern Chile." The other is (64814) 2001 XM227 at an estimated magnitude of 19.5. Both are noted on the annotated image.

On most prior annotated images distant objects were only noted with a G for Galaxy and Q for quasar followed by their distance in billions of light-years. Many have asked for full identification. This makes for a very messy image with little added useful information for most though those interested in something I've passed over can always email me for the identification. Having it on the image would save that step. Considering how few times this happens I've not felt it worth the effort. I've made an exception with this image as there weren't a lot with redshift data. Still, there are a good 1000 seen in the image that I've not labeled with a catalog identification. To do so would be impossible as labels would of necessity cover many galaxies and finding a place for a label nearly impossible after a few hundred. Galaxies are not labeled other than with the catalog name. Quasars and galaxy clusters with a major galaxy are noted with a Q or GC/G after the catalog name and before the distance. Let me know if you want me to do this with future images. Note it is virtually impossible with some images due to the number of objects in a small area to identify.

14" LX200R @ F/10, L=5X10' RGB=2X10'X3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for IC2248

IC2375

I thought I was imaging a nice three galaxy group consisting of IC 2375 2377 and 2379. I saw a fourth similarly bright galaxy at the very bottom but paid it little attention at the time. Turns out this is the LDCE 0574 (also the HDCE 486) galaxy group of 4 galaxies, not three. The first is, in fact, MCG -02-22-011 which is the first galaxy of the group according to NED. This is because it is first in RA order. Thus IC 2375 is #2 with 2377 and 2379 being #3 and #4. The LD in the name stands for Low Density while the HD stands for High Density. How the same 4 galaxies qualify for both is beyond me but I've seen it before.

IC 2375 was my main target as it seems warped and in fact is listed in a paper listing warped galaxies https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full/2003/08/aah3661/aah3661.right.html . But I couldn't find anything on why it is distorted. NED lists it as an SB(s)b pec: galaxy. Seligman says SBb??.

IC 2377 and 2379 are definitely interacting as there's a faint bridge connecting the two. But again I came up empty trying to find anything on their interaction. NED classifies IC 2377 as SB(rs)0/a pec while Seligman says SB0/a??. For IC 2379 they say SB(r)a pec? and Sa??. All three were discovered by Herbert Howe on February 22, 1898 using the 24" refractor at Chamberlin Observatory in Denver. The few nights I tried to view from just south of Denver the seeing was horrible. At least he didn't have the light pollution to deal with back then.

MCG -02-22-011, the distant first member of the group. It is an emission line galaxy that NED classifies as S0+ pec: HII. Thus all 4 of these earned the peculiar label. This one has its own apparent companion MCG -02-22-010/2MFGC 06654, a flat galaxy but not realizing it was there I didn't include it in the frame. It's just below the bottom edge a bit west of MCG -02-22-011. Its redshift is similar to the other four so it too is likely a member of the group. Why it wasn't included I don't know. NED only lists it as an emission line galaxy (HII) but makes no attempt to classify it.

All these galaxies have a redshift that puts them about 285 million light-years distant. The variation is likely due to their own orbital paths around the center of mass of the group. Are there other members? Possibly but none with redshift data within my 20' search radius. All 4 of these galaxies are very red likely falling into the red and dead category. Something has caused them to shut down star formation so old, long lived red stars still survive to dominate these galaxies. IC 2379 seems the least red of the group. Interaction with other galaxies can cause gas to be expelled or heated to the point where star formation is strangled for the needed cold gas to make stars. I have no idea if that's what has happened here.

This field is located in far northeastern Puppis, almost into Hydra, at about -13.5 degrees. This low is difficult to see clearly due to its low altitude. I had to try several nights and combine the best of each to get this image. Since only these 4 had redshift data no annotated image was prepared. Wonky brighter stars are due to it being too far south for my latitude. Seeing down there plus atmospheric dispersion are to blame. Some rare nights I get away with it, not this night.

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

Related Designations for IC2375

IC2574

IC 2574 is sometimes known as known as Coddington's Nebula is a member of the M81 group so is at about the same as the other members, 12 million light years. Rather close for me! It is classed as SAB(s)m. One reason it is called Coddington's Nebula because it was discovered by Edwin Coddington on April 17, 1898. The Abell galaxy cluster 1005 is just barely out of my image to the south. I should have put IC 2574 a bit higher and caught it.

This is a surprisingly faint galaxy for being so close. My initial processing of it 3 years ago stunk up the hard drive. I stumbled across it the other day and had to get rid of the stink. The original data is long gone from the hard drive but is saved in two external hard drives, one in the basement and the other in the safe deposit box. I was too lazy to retrieve the one from the basement storeroom so worked from the 16 bit TIFF images still on this hard drive. Unfortunately, some data was lost in my previous processing. The data wasn't all that great, I really need to retake it but with hundreds still waiting their first chance that will be a while. At least this gets the stink out of the hard drive. Yes, I spent a bit more time on it than usual, this guy is surprisingly faint.

Being out of the SDSS survey it wasn't worth my time to prepare an annotated image. For instance, the edge on galaxy on the left edge isn't even listed in NED. Nor does The Sky have it in its databases.

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

Related Designations for IC2574

IC2910

IC 2910 as a barred spiral with a huge halo. Unfortunately the night I took this was very poor with rather thick high clouds which severely harmed both transparency and seeing. I'm only throwing it out here for the field others may wish to try next spring. By the time I got to processing this it was too late to retake it under better conditions this year.

The galaxy is about 310 million light-years distant and part of a group of galaxies also at this distance in northeastern Crater. NED classifies it as (R')SB(rs)0+ pec while Seligman says more simply, S0/a??. While I didn't find a group designation for this field all galaxies in the image that NED had redshift data for but one were at the same redshift distance but one and it's slightly lower value probably is due to its orbital rate around the group than being a real difference. Unfortunately, most of the field is outside of redshift surveys so most don't have redshift data. I've listed all I could identify though most weren't in NED's database at all with or without redshift data. Those are listed with PGC numbers and no distance in the annotated image. Are the distant background galaxies or just smaller members of the group? I suspect a bit of both but with no data that is sheer speculation.

Plumes indicate some type of interaction. The red color indicating little recent star formation supports this idea. Not finding any likely candidate, at least in my image, it may be that the plumes are due to some galaxy it is digesting. Ignoring the plumes it is about 61,000 light-years across. Rather typical of a barred spiral. Including the plumes, it is over 150,000 light-years in size. Probably larger as poor conditions limited my ability to see the full extent of the plume. The galaxy was discovered by Guillaume Bigourdan on March 29, 1895.

MCG -02-30-001 is an Sc galaxy to the southeast that has a bright star cloud in its north arm that seems made up of several clouds and a small starlike one in the southern arm. Again I was unable to find anything much on it. The pair of galaxies north of IC 2910 may be a true pair or not. Only LEDA 182693 has a redshift distance. To its west is LEDA 170153 that is likely a true companion. It may appear to have a spherical galaxy to the southwest but that is just a star that looks galaxy like due to the bad seeing and being in the faint outer shell of LEDA 170153.

In the northwestern corner is LEDA 170152 which is just listed at NED as "Spiral" It certainly has a lot of interesting internal structure with two arms that are very different as well as some star clouds, one on the end of a surprisingly straight arm. I wish I could find something on this interesting galaxy but again came up empty.

To the east of IC 2910 is PGC 987240 which has what appears to be a large blue plume. The entire galaxy is quite blue indicating lots of star formation in it and in the plume. How it fits in with the rest is unknown due to lack of information.

So this is a very interesting field that asks a lot of questions but answers none. Two asteroids are in the field but due to very poor transparency don't show sufficiently for me to even try and point them out. They are about 20.5 magnitude which normally would be easy to see. That shows how bad this night was.

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

Related Designations for IC2910

IC3476

IC 3476 is a small, nearby irregular galaxy in the constellation of Coma Berenices south of M88 and M91. NED classes it as IB(s)m: with HII emission. Thus they consider it an irregular galaxy with a bar and slight spiral structure of the Magellanic type in which massive HII regions are giving birth to stars. Its redshift distance is meaningless as it has a blue shift (negative value) meaning it is moving toward us. It is located among the galaxies of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster a few of which do have negative redshift values due to the high gravitational forces within the cluster flinging galaxies around at high speed. This may be one of them. Tully-Fisher measurement shows it to be between 40 and 50 million light-years away so could be a true cluster member. Assuming a distance of 45 million light-years its diameter is about 27,500 light-years.

IC 3478 is the SAB: spiral at the top of the page. It is about 100,000 light-years distant, considerably more distant than IC 3476. Both galaxies were discovered by Arnold Schwassmann on November 22, 1900.

IC 3500 is on the lower left edge of my image. It is about 290 million light-years away, the most distant of the three IC galaxies. It seems to have an odd blob on its lower right side. I can't tell what is going on here. NED classes it as SBc which would have rather widely spaced arms. I don't see that here. I hoped the higher resolution of the Sloan Survey image would help but I still can't tell if this is just an oddly shaped arm or due to a second galaxy. Note the two bright blobs in this southwestern bulge. The smaller one furthest west is listed as a separate galaxy by the Sloan Survey and is about right for the core of a second spiral. NED, however, shows it as having a magnitude of 21.7 and it is far brighter than that in my image. Looking at the Sloan image it does appear far brighter as well. The position matches exactly. Still, NED and Sloan often identify obvious parts of a galaxy as a separate galaxy. This makes it hard to tell when they really mean it. Sometimes, not always, they have a note indicating such a galaxy is noted by several entries. That isn't the case here but also isn't always the case with obvious parts of galaxies as well. So I'm still in the dark. No papers I found mention it as interacting with a second galaxy. This one will have to remain as indeterminate. It was discovered by Royal Frost on May 10, 1904.

Quite a few low surface brightness galaxies are in the image. Most have no redshift data but are in the VCC (Virgo Cluster Catalog). I've noted them with their VCC number and a question mark when redshift data is not given.

There is a listed galaxy cluster north of IC 3476 in which the cluster position and the position of the Bright Cluster Galaxy are the same but the distances disagree listing 4.3 billion light-years for the cluster and 4.5 billion light years for the BCG. NED shows 11 galaxies in the cluster of undefined size. Apparently only the BCG is seen in my image. Though a blue quasar is nearby with almost exactly the same redshift as the BCG. Could it be in a member of this galaxy cluster? Seems likely.

The galaxy cluster in the upper right quadrant at 4.0 billion light years is said to contain 11 members in an unknown area. One may be the one just a couple pixels northwest of the BCG. The cluster in the lower right corner at 3.8 billion light years is said to contain 8 members in an undefined area.

There's one asteroid in the image and it's a bright one. (6383) Tokushima at an estimated magnitude of 16.2. It seems brighter than that to me. It's obvious in the upper left corner of the image. The green trace is hard to see as there's just no illumination in the background to let it be seen.

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

Related Designations for IC3476

IC4182

IC 4182. For such a small, insignificant nearby galaxy, it raises one heck of a big stink in the astronomy community. This little guy finds itself in the center of a big controversy over its distance and over the value of Hubble's Constant which is the measuring stick of the universe. Change its value and you change the distance to everything in the universe. So getting it right is very important. It is the measure of how fast the universe is expanding. By measuring how fast distant galaxies are moving away from us we can determine the distance. The faster the farther and Hubble's Constant gives us the value needed to calibrate this scale.

To determine its value we need to measure the distance to nearby galaxies by an independent method. The main one uses Cepheid variable stars. They vary with a rate that is closely tied to their real brightness. So by measuring the period of the variable astronomers know the brightness. Compare that to the brightness as seen from earth and we can quickly determine its distance. But such variables can only be seen in nearby galaxies. Hubble has determined the distance to this galaxy very "accurately" by this method. To determine the distance to galaxies further away we can use type 1A supernova. Most are thought to explode with exactly the same brightness or at least a brightness we can calculate. Thus again we have a "standard candle" of known brightness. Compare that to the brightness as seen from earth and we have its distance. To calibrate the two we need a galaxy close enough for Cepheid variables to be seen that also has had a type 1A supernova of known brightness. One of the very few candidates for this is IC 4182. But something is wrong. There are other, more distant galaxies in which both have been seen but due to their distance, the values have a rather high uncertainty. Still, using several and taking an average the result should be fairly good and the two do seem to give similar answers. But if those values are used in IC 4182 the distance by each method disagrees by a factor of 2. Is it 8 million light years away or 15 to 16 million light years?

The answer depends on which method you use. Some of the difference may be due to dust that is lies between us and IC 4182. It would pass the red light of a Cepheid rather well but scatter and dim the light of a supernova. Still, no one agrees how much dust is between us and this galaxy. Latest studies using addition Hubble data seems to favor the dust model and put the galaxy at only some 8 million light years but the debate rages on. Neither side willing to concede. Something like a certain Democratic/Republican Party situation going on here on earth. The detail I resolve in this galaxy would also argue for the closer figure being more likely correct. At 15 million light years those star clusters would have to be massive beyond what I'd expect in a low mass dwarf spiral like it IC 4182.

After all this NED gives a Tully-Fisher distance of 14 million light-years, about midway between the two camps with an error bar of about 3 million, not enough to reach either. They classify it as SA(s)m. It was discovered by Max Wolf on March 21, 1903.

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

Related Designations for IC4182

IC4213

IC 4213 is a rather odd edge-on spiral in Canes Venatici in which no dust lane is seen. Even a core is rather missing consisting of just an area below center a bit redder than the rest of the galaxy. I make out no hint of spiral structure, just dark dust clouds and bright star clouds. It is listed by NED as a Scd: galaxy with HII emission. Its redshift distance is about 48 million light-years which means it should be within range of my H alpha filter. I should have tried it. Non-redshift measurements put it more like 64 million light-years distant. At such close range, redshift can be quite misleading. So I used the larger distance to estimate its size at 56,000 light-years. A rather typical size for a spiral. I wonder if seen face on it would be a rather flocculent galaxy. Even those usually have a dust lane which seems very absent in this galaxy. I did push the contrast a bit more than normal as it was very bland with my usual processing. Just a minor tweak and suddenly the contrast jumped far more than I expected. So I blended it back down to 50% and may have overdone it even then compared to what few images of it I can find on the net. The galaxy was discovered by Stephane Javelle on June 15, 1903. How did it escape galaxy hunters for so many years? It is magnitude 13.3 so not all that faint. Even Herschel should have picked it up.

I actually had two objects in mind when taking this one. In the lower right is UGC 8261 a really strange Im galaxy. NED says it has an eccentric nucleus which I take to be the slightly orange part a few seconds of arc northwest (upper right) of the center. It also has a really blue star cloud at the far left. It seems to outshine the rest of the galaxy. I'd love to see what the HST could resolve it into. There's no mention of HII at NED but I wonder if it still has HII emission or has all that gas been used up in forming that ball of super hot blue stars or been blown away by their light pressure which must be quite strong. One paper I found says it is an emission line galaxy with a faint emission region, HS 1308+3845, that is probably what it calls a "super association". I take it that this is the blue object. Though if the name contains its coordinates they don't match those of the galaxy by several minutes of arc even if B1950 coordinates are used. Its redshift distance puts it at 50 million light-years, almost the same as IC 4213. This likely means they are related. With only two no redshift measurements at NED that vary from 59 to 144 million light-years they aren't of much help.

Below it is the much more distant LEDA 214085 which appears to be just a smudge with no hint of detail. It's blue so not likely an elliptical or SO galaxy. I found nothing to categorize it.

Several possible quasars are in the image */Q means it is most likely a star but could be a quasar. CQ stands for Candidate Quasar. Both have only sometimes unreliable photographic redshift values.

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

Related Designations for IC4213