KTG67

I bet this is one few if any of you have heard of. I hadn't either until Sakib Rasool suggested it. KTG stands for "Karachentsev Isolated Triplets of Galaxies Catalogue" Though it appears there are 4 maybe 5 in this group. It is in Hercules about 140 million light-years from us according to its redshift.

KTG67 officially consists of three galaxies, NGC 6484 on the west, UGC 11027 to the northeast and UGC 11029 furthest east. Nearly directly east from NGC 6484 is a pair of similar small disk galaxies situated almost at right angles to each other. They are UGC 11010. The lower is MCG +04-42-011 and the upper, nearly vertical one is MCG +04-42-010. Only the latter has a redshift distance which is also about 140 million light-years. I can't tell if the southerly one is a fifth member or not as NED had no distance data on it.

The main reason for imaging this group is UGC 11027 a rather "sloshed" galaxy. The stereotypical sloshed galaxy is NGC 5474 near M101. This term applies to the off-center core. Often it really isn't off center by much, it's just that the disk stars on one side are very faint compared to those on the other side. That's the case with NGC 5474. My image isn't deep enough to say if that's the case here. Though I see no hint of a faint disk to the south and southwest to match the rest of the disk.

A note at NED is rather confusing. It says: "Bright red condensation 0.45 x 0.25 in south-following part, superimposed companion?" Confusing in that I see no hint of this object in my image nor the recently released expanded Sloan Survey image. The note is from the original release of the UGC catalog. NED classes it as Im meaning an irregular galaxy. Looks to me like a barred spiral with one part missing. It could very well be a merger situation, however. There are some bright knots on the eastern side that could be the remains of a merging galaxy.

UGC 11029 is classed as an SBd spiral. It does look quite typical of a many-armed spiral and thus likely not recently disturbed by its neighbors.

NGC 6484 may at first appear a rather normal barred spiral with two wide arms. But to me, it is very odd. First off, while the core is elongated as you'd expect in a typical barred spiral there is no obvious bar. In fact, it is classed as Sb? at NED. While one arm comes from an end of the core's elongation the other starts out of nowhere well away from the core. Also, the arms have an odd symmetry. Each has a pair of bright blue star clouds directly across the core from each other. Then further down the spiral arms are a line of fainter blue star clouds also opposite each other across the core. Coincidence or is there something behind the scenes causing this? I have no idea. There is also a short plume going to the southwest. This left over from some long-ago interaction? It was discovered by Truman Safford on July 11, 1866.

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

Related Designations for KTG67

LBN0139

Sh2-88/LBN 139 is a small nebula in Vulpecula about 2.4 kpc (7,800 light-years) distant. It contains at least three separate star-forming regions in its about 1 minute diameter. To its west is a larger mostly reflection nebula, at least in my red starved image, around 10th magnitude GSC 02143-01279. SIMBAD shows no identifier for this nebula. I found an amateur who says Sh2-88 is LBN 138 and the mystery reflection nebula is LBN 137 but both NED and SIMBAD point to rather obscure nebulae further west for these with LBN 139 being Sh2-88. All appear to be part of the Vulpecula OB1 association. Other than this I found little on the field.

Transparency decreased steadily as I was taking the color data with the blue channel having clear skies but decreasing greatly by the time the last red frame was taken, (blue-green-red) was the order. I had to do a lot of compensation so the colors are rather suspect. Most images show Sh2-88 as nearly all H alpha pink rather than only the center in my image with the rest blue. But they were listed as being H alpha for the luminance channel so they didn't pick up much of the reflection part. Those show the mystery nebula as rather white rather than blue. I have it down to retake the color data to verify my LRGB data. I suspect it is far too blue. Considering the weather I doubt I'll get to it for a while, unfortunately. Besides I can't even get to it until July.

For those wanting to read more about the star-forming regions and more in Sh2-88 see:
http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?2000A%26A...360.1107D&db_key=AST&nosetcookie=1

See my entry for SH2-88 for a much better image of this field.

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

Related Designations for LBN0139

LBN0438

LBN 438 is located in the constellation of Lacerta. Normally dust in our galaxy is dark unless a bright star nearby lights it up much like the sun lights a cloud. Such clouds are called reflection nebula and are usually white or blue-white. Some, lit by very red stars such as those around Antares take on its orange-red color. LBN 438 is far from any illuminating star. It doesn't shine with reflected starlight nor does it shine from glowing gasses like most other nebulae. It is what is called an ERE or Extended Red Emission object. Just as some minerals will glow when hit by ultraviolet light some dust will do so when hit by ultraviolet starlight. But there are no such stars near it to do this. That is what really makes these rare but fascinating objects. They shine by the combined ultraviolet light of the stars in the arms of our Milky Way. They exist well above the Milky Way where they have a grand view of our barred spiral galaxy. This one is only apparently near the Milky Way. That is an illusion due to where we and it are located. Since these are caused to glow by the light of stars thousands of light years away they glow very very dimly and are just now being recognized for what they are. Unlike most objects I feature these can't be seen visually in a scope. Their red color falls where our eyes are rather insensitive and they are far fainter than we could ever hope to see, even in the largest of telescopes. I needed two nights of data just to get what I did of this guy and 4 or 5 more would have been a great help but some electronic part had other ideas. We have no real idea of their distance. Also while red, they are dust, not gas so emit no significant H-alpha light meaning there's no filter that can be used to help bring them out. Their emission is very broad, not narrow like Hydrogen H-alpha light is. For those with hip waders, you can read about the ERE process at:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0309/0309674v1.pdf

14" LX 200R @ f/10, L=8x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for LBN0438

LBN0477

LBN 477 is also sometimes known as vdB156d. As such it's illuminating star is thought to be Omicron Andromedae about 1.3 degrees to the northwest. It is classified as a reflection nebula. Usually, reflection nebulae are very blue if in front of the illuminating star such that the star's light passes through the nebula on the journey to earth. But when the nebula is off to the side or behind the illuminating star as is the case here then it takes on the color of the star itself. In this case, Omicron is a B6pv star so should be very blue yet the nebula is only vaguely blue with areas of strong brown red color. This color is usually attributed to Extended Red Emission caused when certain dust compounds glow when hit with sufficient ultraviolet light. ERE is a very broadband emission rather than bright line emission seen when gas luminesces due to ultraviolet light. What these compounds are exactly is still up for debate. See http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/March02/Li/Li3_2.html for more on this rather poorly understood subject.

Omicron is about 700 light-years from us. If it is the illuminating star then that is about the distance to the nebula. Likely it is somewhat behind the star for the ERE emission not to be blocked by dust on the side facing the star.

An asteroid appeared on the first night of data collection. It is (264424) 2000 RE. The Minor Planet Center estimates its magnitude that night to be 18.4. It looks a lot dimmer than that but likely the gunk I was imaging through is responsible for that. While a few (less than a dozen) background galaxies are listed at NED none have distance data or even a magnitude so I've not prepared an annotated image. All were from the 2MASS survey and had rather vague positions though with so few in the image that wouldn't have hindered identification like it sometimes does.

I hate to be a broken record but I tried for three nights for this one and got clobbered each time. Transparency was poor all nights so I combined as many frames as I could to get this result. Still, red frames were the strongest and blue the weakest due to the scattering by the clouds. I tried to compensate as best I could. Still, I ended up with more ERE in the nebula than I've seen in the very few images of this one on the net. That may indicate a color error from the clouds. It will have to do for now, however. This one is a bit larger than my FOV so I just put in as much as I could of the brightest portion.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=8x10' RG=4x10' B=3x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for LBN0477

LBN0532

LBN 532 is a nebula in central Cepheus. Simbad lists it as an HII emission nebula. I wanted to see what references had to say about it but Simbad says there's no mention of it in any paper since 1850! My attempt to research it came to a sudden halt at that point!

Other than its inclusion in the Lynds Bright Nebula catalog there's nothing on it. Looks more like an ERE (Extended Red Emission) nebula to me. This type of emission was unknown at the time of the Lynds catalogs. While it probably contains H II emission (I haven't found any images of it at that frequency nor did I take any) it appears much of its emission is due to the fluorescence of carbon compounds due to ultraviolet light of our galaxies O and B stars. The density of the cloud is obvious from the apparent total blockage of light from stars beyond the cloud. Of course, there's no estimate of its distance that I could find.

The nebula is so red I got no blue signal from it at all and virtually no green but it is so dark even the red was weak in the densest areas. HII usually, but not always, includes H beta emission seen in blue-green light. I didn't see any hint of such emission. Thus, I think most of the red I did pick up is from ERE rather than HII. I'd need to take an image in H alpha to prove this. For a nebula that is nearly pure bright ERE see images of the Red Rectangle. The red dust lanes in some of my galaxy images are also due to ERE.

For those interested in ERE there are many papers on it if you search the term. For those with hip waders, I found this one interesting.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0309/0309674v1.pdf
For a more layman's approach see:
http://www.space.com/3658-mystery-red-space-glow-solved.html

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

Related Designations for LBN0532

LBN0564

This image is the southern end of a huge dust cloud known as LBN 564. For some reason, SIMBAD says it is an HII region which is incorrect though it may contain some molecular hydrogen I see no sign of ionized hydrogen whatsoever. LBN stands for Lynds Bright Nebula which is rather ironic as these nebulae are exceedingly faint, most shining by the light of our galaxy's distant stars rather than a nearby star as the well-known nebula do. But then those that don't glow at all are labeled LDN, the D for Dark so Lynd covered both. She just looked through all the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey plates and listed all of either kind she found, or more likely her grad students found.

This dust cloud shines by luminescence from starlight, light no brighter than we see here on earth from our night stars. No nearby star illuminates it at all. This luminescence causes certain compounds in the cloud to glow. Most glow with a reddish blue color. It likely would look redder if I'd have had more color data. Red is my weakest wavelength so I need a lot when dealing with something this exceedingly faint. I could find no info on this one as to size or distance. The detached part just below the densest region carries the designation RNO 150. RNO stands for Red Nebulous Object. This just means it was brighter on the red POSS plate than the blue one which fits with the way these dust clouds glow. The brightest star in this image is about Magnitude 9.3 which puts it 20 times fainter than the dimmest star most see on a dark moonless night. The faintest are about 200,000 times fainter than the brightest. This range and the extreme faintness of the nebula made processing this image exceedingly difficult. It took me over a year to get up the nerve to work on it as this is an early image beyond my processing ability at the time it was taken. It is located on the Andromeda side of the Andromeda/Cassiopeia border.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for LBN0564

LBN0777

LBN 777 is one of those very faint dust nebulas that shine by ultraviolet light of the entire galaxy rather than a few super hot, nearby, newly formed stars in the case of an emission nebula. While M16 has long since been called the Eagle Nebula, I've been hard-pressed to see a flying eagle when looking at it. this one sure looks like the head of an eagle to me. But it is too faint to see visually. But it makes for a very big eagle. Still, most see it as a vulture rather than an eagle, maybe because of M16 already having the Eagle name. Since that was taken most call it the Vulture Nebula. I still prefer Eagle Nebula.

I've oriented the image with south up rather than my normal north up as it makes the eagle/vulture head more obvious. The red region behind the eye is Barnard 207 (some websites incorrectly call it Barnard 107. The "eye" is a real hole in the cloud. Between the eye and Barnard 207 is a red star with a shock wave coming from it. This is a typical M class dwarf star that just happened to run into the nebula. The shock wave is it plowing through the dust as its solar wind acts as a shield deflecting the dust around it. I couldn't find any distance estimate. The galaxy below its beak is CGCG 487-015 and is about 320 million light years distant. Far closer is asteroid 2001 MQ8, left of the beak. 2008UR205 is harder to find. Note the bright blue star below the "eye". Directly above it is a small slightly red star. Look just below this little red star for a short diagonal line going from upper left to lower right. The orbit of this one was pinned down only days before this image was taken. It is at magnitude 20.3 so nearly lost in the nebula. In fact what you see is only part of the trail, the rest got lost in my processing.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=7x10' RGB=2x10, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for LBN0777

LDN0673

LDN 673 is a large complex of dark clouds in Aquila on the eastern edge of the dark rift in the Milky way that passes through the constellation. Unfortunately, transparency was putrid this night (I know I sound like a broken record) so the image is severely underexposed. Blue is compromised by moonlight so my color is suspect and likely too red in fainter regions. Another for the reshoot list for next year.

The nebula at the top right is the reflection nebula GN 19.18.0 and surrounds the YSO candidate (Young Stellar Object) 2MASS J19201949+1121544. I've seen it called RNO 109 but SIMBAD puts that just out of my image to the upper right of the object. It might be the position is in error, I don't know why the discrepancy. Near the bottom on the right is the HH32 complex. It is around the V Orionis type star, V1352 Aql. SIMBAD also shows a T Tauri star only 0.25" south identified as EM* AS 353A. The EM* indicates it is an emission line star. Are these two separate objects or two different catalog entries for the same object? They lie within the error bar for the positions of each. The first is listed as being of spectral type Cn indicating a carbon star while the latter is K2. Note the very red emission object to the west (right) of this possible pair of stars. The position given for these two stars is actually between the two stars in my image which are separated by about 2" of arc, not 0.25". Checking the magnitudes of the stars the K2 star has a blue magnitude of 13.5 and a V (green) magnitude of 12.5 so is slightly red. Carbon stars are normally very red yet the carbon star's B and V magnitudes are 11.5 and 12 respectively indicating a blue star! Now I'm really confused.

The bright blue star on the lower right is 8th magnitude SAO 104730 an A0 star so some six times dimmer than a 6th magnitude star considered the limit of human vision from a dark skies site (probably conservative for an experienced observer but reasonable to the casual sky gazer with untrained night vision.

A bit right and just below the centerline a very blue star that stands out from all the red. It is the white dwarf star GD 218 at magnitude 16.

This is the last image for July. While conditions for this one were awful they were even worse the rest of the month. No more imaging was possible until August.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10' (all under poor to very poor conditions), STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for LDN0673

LDN0778

LDN 778 is part of a dark nebula complex in Vulpecula about 3.7 degrees north of the "Coathanger". It is the dark diagonal streak that doesn't quite fit my field of view. I suppose it would if I'd have rotated the camera from my normal north up position. The dark nebula in the upper left corner is LDN 782. Toward the upper end of LDN 778 is the reflection nebula, GN 19.24.6 which appears lit by the variable star PX Vulpecula. It's an Orion type variable. These are irregular eruptive variable stars often found with reflection nebula such as seen here. They are thought to be very young or proto-stars not quite ready to settle down to main sequence status. The term encompasses several types of eruptive stars including T Tauri and FU Orionis stars. PX Vulpecula is a T Tauri class star.

I've reproduced this one at 1.5" per pixel as there's nothing needing greater resolution.

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

Related Designations for LDN0778

LDN0810

LDN 810 is a dark nebula in Vulpecula right on the border with Cygnus which is in the upper right of my image. Note the obscuring dust cloud continues north out of my frame. In the center of LDN 810 is the reflection nebula GN 19.43.3.01. LDN 810 is seen in IR light to be the birth ground of stars hidden by dust in visible light. I found a rather wide range of distance values for it in 4 different papers:
Herbst & Turner 1976 4900 to 6500 light-years
Neckel & Staude 1990 6500 +/- 1000 light-years
Turner 1986 8100 light-years +/- 650 light-years
Xie & Goldsmith 1990 8100 light-years with no error bar indicated

It appears to be moving away far faster than the speed of light by those estimates. Of course, that's due to better data, or I hope so. From the above, it is likely safe to say the distance is at least 8100 light-years.

LDN 810 is on the western edge of SH2-92 which provides the faint red background, especially to the east and northeast in my image. LDN 810 appears to lie in front of SH2-92 as well as most of the stars of the Milky Way in this part of the sky. My limited color data wasn't sufficient to pick up but a hint of H alpha color. I needed far more frames. I took them but my typical 2012 weather made most of them unusable. I picked the best two for each color though the green frames were all rather useless.

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

Related Designations for LDN0810