NGC0040

NGC 40 is a very red planetary nebula in Cepheus about 3000 to 3500 light-years away. The distance to these objects is hard to pin down. Papers indicate this nebula is interacting with the interstellar medium (ISM). It has two jets, a long one to the north and a fainter shorter one to the south. Many images on the net fail to pick these up which surprised me. The north arm is bent possibly due to the interaction with the ISM. See http://www.aanda.org/index.php?option=com_article&access=bibcode&Itemid=129&bibcode=2002A%2526A...391..689MFUL for more on this.

Conditions were horrible for this image. I was able to only use 2 of the 10 minute images and none of the 2 minute images of the bright regions were usable so they are rather burned in as is the central star. To better show the jet with limited luminance data I combined the two L images with one 5 minute one from long ago with the blue and red frames to make a pseudo luminance image. To show the weak nebulosity in the area I stretched it beyond reason. This hurt the stars but did allow some of the background nebulosity to be seen.

It was discovered by William Herschel on November 25, 1788. It is in the original Herschel 400 observing program. My entry from July 11, 1985 with my 10" f/5 at 180x on a good night reads: "Nearly 1', translucent ball of light around a 12th magnitude central star. UHC filter helped reduce the light of the star to make the nebula larger and brighter. Where did the 60"x8" size in the manual come from? It is nearly round to me, say 60" x 50" though I see Burnham's has it more oval. A good object."

14" LX200R f/10, PSEUDO L=6x10'+1x5' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC0040

NGC0060

NGC 60/UGC 150 is a rather chaotic spiral possibly interacting with a high surface brightness companion on its arm. Why Arp didn't include it in his category for such galaxies I don't know. Seems more deserving than some he did include though at the time he didn't realize they were often at very different distances. That's not the case here. These two have virtually the same redshift that puts them about a half billion light years distant. It is located in southern Pisces between Aquarius and Cetus. NED and the NGC project classify it as SA(r)cd pec. Peculiar it certainly is with its very weird arm structure. NED makes no attempt to classify its companion, however. It was discovered by Édouard Stephan on November 2, 1882.

There's a third object to consider. It is northeast of the core of NGC 60. While its listed redshift is listed as about the same as the other two this is a friends of friends estimate (based on the other two) so of course, it agrees! Is it a star cloud in the disk of NGC 60 or a third galaxy. NED considers it a separate galaxy. If correct are they right to use a FoF estimate for redshift? To me, it looks like a distant unrelated galaxy. However, looks can be deceiving.

There are several other galaxies in the field, two near NGC 60, the others scattered through the image, that appear to be part of the same group at about a half billion light-years. All are listed by catalog identification not just my usual G label for galaxies. Several other groups appear to exist in the image. one at just under 2 billion light-years, another at just under one billion light-years and another at a bit over 800 million light-years.

The image contains many quasars (Q) and quasar candidates (UvES). Arp seemed enamored with the idea they are nearby objects, with anomalous redshift, ejected from disturbed galaxies like NGC 60. Another reason I find it odd he overlooked this object. It's quite possible they were unknown at the time.

Quasar LBQS 0013-0029 at 10.53 billion light-years is north of NGC 60. It is quite interesting not for itself but for what is between it and us. NED lists 9 absorption line sources between the quasar and us. With their redshift distances they are:
[HB89] 0013-004 ABS01 at 10.44 billion light years
[HB89] 0013-004 ABS02 at 10.38 billion light years
[HB89] 0013-004 ABS03 at 10.36 billion light years
[HB89] 0013-004 ABS04 at 10.35 billion light years
[HB89] 0013-004 ABS05 at 10.34 billion light years
[HB89] 0013-004 ABS06 at 9.95 billion light years
[HB89] 0013-004 ABS07 at 9.87 billion light years
[HB89] 0013-004 ABS08 at 9.53 billion light years
[HB89] 0013-004 ABS09 at 4.65 billion light years

Each is a cloud of gas and likely dust that have added their absorption lines to those of the quasar. It must be fun untangling such a mess.

There are 6 asteroids in the image. I've listed them with their magnitude estimate from the Minor Planet Center. One has the name Abstracta. I had to look that one up. Here's the naming citation.

(6805) Abstracta = 4600 P-L
Named for the astronomical bibliography Astronomy and Astrophysics Abstracts. Founded in 1969, the AAA present a comprehensive documentation of all aspects of astronomy, astrophysics and related fields. The AAA are prepared under the auspices of the IAU by a special department of the Astronomisches Rechen-Institut, Heidelberg. The department, headed by Lutz D. Schmadel for the last 20 years, has recorded, abstracted and indexed more than 500,000 documents. AAA is the direct successor of the Astronomischer Jahresbericht, which was founded in 1900. The AAA already amount to more than 60 volumes, occupying more than 3 meters of shelf space.

Since I use this source a lot in my research I find the asteroid more interesting than normal.

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

Related Designations for NGC0060

NGC0095

NGC 95 is a very peculiar galaxy in Pisces some 230 million light-years distant by redshift. Tully-Fisher estimates put it close at 190 million light-years using the mean value but they range from 170 to 230 million light-years. The galaxy has a very triangular shape with plumes to the east and west. My wife says it looks like it was flattened by someone stepping on it and spilling guts to the side. Something seems to have disturbed it but I doubt it was a big foot. The arm structure is very odd. It has mostly short faint arm segments coming from a very bright core that run rather directly to the edge which is ringed in HII star-forming regions. One arm coming around the west (right) side is stronger and rather red. As it reaches the edge it appears to turn blue and looping back along the edge until it meets another arm on the northeast which carries the illusion of a loop back to the core. Rather than being real, I think this an illusion due to the location of the HII regions but they could indicate something odd going on. The shape and plumes would indicate interaction with something, possibly something it is digesting. NED, The NGC project and Seligman all classify it as SAB(rs)c pec. Though Seligman adds a question mark after the "c". It was discovered by William Herschel on October 18, 1784. It isn't listed in either of the Herschel 400 observing programs. I measure its size at 120,000 light-years though Seligman says 125,000 but they put it slightly more distant (250 million light-years) which accounts for the size difference.

The only other galaxy with redshift data in the field is the flat galaxy FGC 036. It has virtually the same redshift as NGC 95 putting it at 230 million light-years though Tully Fisher measurements say 250 million. Since it is about half the angular size of NGC 95 it is half its size or about 60,000 light-years. NED says it is classified as an Sd galaxy.

One faint asteroid appears in the image halfway between NGC 95 and the lower right corner. It is (255371) 2005 WW111. It is estimated by the Minor Planet Center at magnitude 19.4 but appears much fainter in my image. This is likely due to the poor transparency and high sky brightness due to aurora the night I took this data. Due to the poor conditions, I tried another night but while transparency was better seeing was far worse so I went back and used the first night's data. There's a second 20.5 magnitude asteroid in the image but it is so faint it didn't survive my processing. I probably should have tried yet again but never did. The aurora played havoc with my color balance. I hope I compensated. I think it fairly close at least.

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

Related Designations for NGC0095

NGC0128

The NGC 128 galaxy group is located in southern Pisces along the border with Cetus and is about 200 million light-years distant give or take 30 million or so. Redshift distances range from 170 to 230 million light-years due to orbital velocity differences. I found no other distance estimates for the group.

The core galaxy appears to be the very strange edge on galaxy NGC 128 at about 180 million light-years by redshift. Its disk is rather warped and apparently covered by a dust band from nearby NGC 127. Its core region is very odd with a box-like structure with severe points at the corners. Many papers refer to the nucleus being peanut shaped. I guess this is the odd "X" shape. I sure don't see a peanut in any image including those in the papers. Most attribute this shape to perturbations caused by the two companions. Though the much smaller companions don't seem nearly as distorted. To distort the more massive core region with such small galaxies without tearing them to pieces seems rather hard to explain. I suspect the core is more likely due to a merger. Many years ago (like about 1985) I played with galaxy collision models by computer. Took days to run a simple simulation. Several times when a small galaxy was eaten by a tightly wound spiral I ended up with something seen edge on that looked like this, complete with warped disk and no other companions needed. Today simulations that include dust and gas (not possible with the computing power I had available) show they can be ejected leaving a dead, often elliptical galaxy. I have to wonder if that isn't what's going on here and the two companions are latecomers to the scene. It is classed as S0 pec by NED which seems reasonable.

To the west is NGC 127 at a redshift indicated distance of 170 million light-years. It appears to be interacting with NGC 128 but I can't see that as sufficient to cause NGC 128's odd core. Wish I could come back in a few million years to see what happens. NGC 127 is classed by NED as SA0^0^: by NED and SA0°by the NGC project.

On the eastern side of NGC 128 is NGC 130. It doesn't appear to be interacting so is likely at a somewhat different distance. Redshift would put it a bit behind NGC 128 but I doubt you can read it that accurately to know for sure. It shows no sign of distortion. The only one of the 5 NGC galaxies in the image to be "normal" looking. NED and the NGC project class it as SA0-:.

Southwest of NGC 128 is NGC 126. NED's classification is SB0^0^? while the NGC project says SB0°?. Except for the north and south side arms being unequal, it is rather normal looking.

Furthest west is the face on galaxy NGC 125. It has obviously interacted with some galaxy in the past; possibly NGC 128. It certainly has the mass to have inflicted damage on it and has plumes to indicate something major happened. Also, the core is "sloshed", meaning it is well off center. This can be caused by tidal forces some papers say. There's a broad plume on the south side partly hidden behind rather bright field stars in our galaxy. It has a talon-like claw coming out the west side. While faint it sure looks nasty! The NGC Project calls it (R)SA0+P: and NED says (R)SA0+ pec:. So they agree on this one.

NGC 125 and NGC 128 were discovered by William Herschel on December 25m 1790. NGC 126, NGC 127 and NGC 130 were found by Bindon Stoney on November 4, 1850.

Other group members that can be identified by redshift is MCG +00-02-045. It is also cataloged as 2MFGC 00328, a flat galaxy catalog of 2MASS IR galaxies. It isn't flat enough for the true flat galaxy catalog, however. NED says it is a Sbc: edge on galaxy. There are many other possible group members in the image but without any redshift data, it's impossible to know for sure. Some may be dwarfs closers than the group or large than average galaxies further away than the group. For those that seemed possible and were identified I labeled them with their catalog name, almost are from the 2MASS IR survey or from the British anonymous galaxy plate survey.

Many others are not listed in NED at all and are just noted with a question mark when they were either more interesting or brighter than many of the identified galaxies.

There are 6 asteroids in the image. They are listed by name and magnitude estimate by the Minor Planet Center on the annotated image. That saves me going over them here.

I've included an HST image of the core region of NGC 128 though it shows little detail. While it was labeled as color it appears to be a grayscale image.

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

Related Designations for NGC0128

NGC0129

NGC 129 is an open cluster in Cassiopeia about 5300 light-years distant. Distances to open clusters are often hard to come by. Not in this case. The cluster is one of the youngest known, about 77 million years old yet does contain the Cepheid variable DL Cassiopeia. It is the orange star just right of center in my cropped image. As an important rung on the distance ladder, this cluster and star have been very well studied allowing its distance to be pinned down rather accurately for a change.

Unlike NGC 7261 an even younger cluster, this one isn't as reddened by dust so appears much bluer. Also, eXcalibrator found more stars with good spectral data that were in the cluster itself that allowed me to adjust fully for what reddening there was, about half a magnitude.

The cluster was discovered by William Herschel on December 16, 1788 and is in the original Herschel 400 observing program. The preliminary notes from that program I was working from said it extended to 6th magnitude, very blue HD 2626 15 minutes to the south. I had to move the cluster south to move the star well out of my field as it was sending in some very nasty reflections and flares. My comments from July 11, 1985 took issue with that star being "in" the cluster. They read: "Large, rather bright, scattered cluster whose north edge blends into the background stars. Field star mentioned is a good 15 minutes south of the cluster and not 'within' it as the writer indicates. Also, the cluster is larger than the 11' cited (maybe 15'). Even so, it can't reach the field star." Today most sources say it is about 20 minutes across rather than the 15 I saw. That still won't reach HD 2626.

A few galaxies are seen in the background but they are nearly star-like and have no redshift data so I didn't bother with an annotated image.

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

Related Designations for NGC0129

NGC0136

When nothing pressing is within my imaging window which stretches no more than 1 or two hours either side of the meridian I will pick up a Herschel 400 (either the original or second list) object. The night of January 5th UT didn't look promising so I went for the rather meager original Herschel 400 object, the open star cluster NGC 136 in Cassiopeia, about 17,000 light-years according to WEBDA. That explains its small size. My visual notes from July 11, 1985 with my 10" f/5 reads: "Small ball of 15-20 stars inside a 10' cloud of stars." I don't really see that star cloud but the star count seems reasonable from my image. Herschel found it on November 26, 1788.

But I got quite a surprise when I processed this image. Processed normally for a star cluster I saw a "glitch" in my flat. Apparently, a dust mot was on the flat that wasn't on the camera. It was small so made a faint ring of light below an orange star. That was my initial take. I was about to process it out when I saw it wasn't quite round. Could it be real? I checked an image taken later that same night under worse conditions with no hint of a bright ring after flat calibration nor did the flat show a dust mot in that spot. So what the heck was it? A check of the blue POSS II plate showed a hint of the same feature. I'd just read a technique for bringing out galaxy plumes that was quick and dirty invented by Adam Block. Since it takes only seconds to try I put it to use and out popped an irregular ring. It is very noisy as I'm working severely underexposed for such a faint feature. Still, it looked like it could be a faint planetary nebula. A quick plate solve and check of SIMBAD showed that's what it was. It was discovered in 2012 by the French amateur astronomer Nicolas Outters when taking a deep shot in narrow band of nearby Sh2-173. I was two years late in taking the image! It is Ou2. He's discovered 4 such objects now. Not all are certain planetary nebulae, however. See: http://www.astroscu.unam.mx/rmaa/RMxAA..48-2/PDF/RMxAA..48-2_aacker.pdf for the initial announcement of Ou1 through 4 and two others found by other amateurs. If you read French or use a translation program Outters' website is at: http://www.outters.fr/ . Last I tried it it wasn't working properly for my browsers.

I processed this image expecting it to be quick and easy with little research needed for such an open cluster. Ou2 changed that! Took me several hours to track down the information on it. The central star is thought to be the sort of bright blue star a bit to the upper right of the dark core and below a rather bright blue star in the inner edge of the upper part of the ring. It shows faintly in the NB image in the PDF link above. Those out there taking many hour exposures in narrow band can likely show it a lot better than my 40 minutes of luminance data does.

So how many have imaged this cluster and either missed seeing or processed out the planetary that could have had their name on it?

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

Related Designations for NGC0136

NGC0140

NGC 140 is a rather strange spiral galaxy in western Andromeda about 280 million light-years distant judging by its redshift. NED and the NGC project classify it as Scd: The colon indicating some question about this classification. I classify it is strange. It seems to have only one main arm that comes out of the northern end of the galaxy which wraps around to the east then south and then back north making a three quarters ring around the galaxy. At this point, it seems to split in two. The shorter part continuing north-northwest then suddenly wrapping to the east-northeast where it ends. The longer half makes a sharp bend to the east-northeast to travel under the shorter branch. When it gets about as far east as the upper branch it suddenly bends south again. Other short arm segments can be seen off the three quarters ring at the south end going west. The ring portion of the one main arm has many knots of star formation which NED indicates are HII regions. I found no papers on this galaxy to shed light on how it got its strange arm structure. It was discovered by Truman Safford on October 8, 1866.

While there are a ton of background galaxies, not one has a listed redshift and only one has a magnitude listed. This is truly a "zone of avoidance" as far as information is concerned. A very odd spiral, hundreds of interesting background galaxies and nothing of use on any of it. Very frustrating.

I know I sound like a broken record but this one was severely hurt by conditions. I took a lot of data yet could use very little of it. Of the 4 red frames taken only 1 was at all usable. I used 2 of the 4 for the other two colors but they are highly suspect. 4 of the 8 luminance frames were unusable as well. I was surprised it came out as well as it did. I almost chucked the whole data set.

This is my first November 2013 image and was taken under very high winds with gusts to 70 kph according to my cloud sensor. I should have removed the dew shield as that extra length gave the wind leverage to move the scope elongating stars. High winds alone keep dew at bay so the shield wasn't needed. This is by far the highest winds I've tried imaging under due to the risk of branches flying into the observatory. Why I didn't shut down I don't recall. Guess I was desperate for finishing this one as I'd already spent several failed nights on it due to weather.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' (one very poor), R=1x10', GB=2x10' (one green and one blue poor), STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC0140

NGC0147

NGC 147 is a low surface brightness dwarf elliptical galaxy and well-known satellite of M31. Oddly, I found a wide range of distance measurements to this one. Apparently, it doesn't have any Cepheids as all distance measurements used other methods including a relative of Cepheids, RR Lyra stars. The estimates ranged from 2.2 to 2.8 million light-years. The average is about 2.5 million light-years which is pretty much the accepted distance to M31. One paper said star formation ended over a billion years ago in NGC 147. Another said there's been little star formation for the last 3 billion years. I expected it to be more golden than it came out.

I noticed a nice "small" edge on disk galaxy on the NE edge of the galaxy. I then collected redshift data from NED on the field. Oddly that galaxy (marked with a question mark in the annotated image) wasn't in NED at all. NED identified less than 20 galaxies in the field even though I see far more in my image. Of those only 5 had redshift data. I'm not counting NGC 147 since it is bound to M31 which is heading our way. Thus NGC 147 has a blue shift, worthless for determining distance. One of the 5 is about 130 million light-years away and is southeast (lower left) of NGC 147. It is listed at NED as being a starburst galaxy though rather red in my image. Not unexpected as the new stars of such galaxies are often hidden near the core behind a dense dust cloud. Heating of the cloud by these stars is often the key to identifying them as being starburst galaxies. Still, it is nearly star-like and faint at magnitude 19.7 so a low surface brightness dwarf galaxy.

It was discovered by John Herschel on September 8, 1829.

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

Related Designations for NGC0147

NGC0153

NGC 151/153 is a disturbed looking spiral in western Cetus about 160 million light-years from our galaxy by redshift while non-redshift measurements put it 150 million light-years distant, a very good agreement. Using the latter distance I get a size, including the drawn-out arm of about 140,000 light-years. While I call the arm on the left a drawn out arm it ends about 97" of arc from the center of the core but the right-hand edge ends at 98" of arc from the core. So the two sides are pretty equal, just that the eastern side is made up of this one arm and a lot of space with few stars while the western side has lots of stars in several arms and arcs giving the impression it extends further east than west when they are quite equal. The illusion was so strong I had to measure it again just to be sure I didn't make a mistake. Still, the two sides are very different and that begs for a reason.

Arp had a classification for spirals with high surface brightness companions on an arm. The arm usually appeared drawn out in these galaxies. Oddly many times the companion was only due to line of sight with the companion often much more distant. Sometimes it was a true companion and in others, no redshift data was available leaving the issue unanswered. This time we do have a redshift measurement that puts it slightly further away at 210 million light-years. The this leaves the issue a bit ambiguous in that they could be at about the same distance with the companion moving away from NGC 151/153 at a high speed. While possibly the situation is due a high speed encounter with a galaxy this small, it wouldn't likely create this much distortion so I have to consider these two as line of sight galaxies until further evidence comes in. Why Arp didn't include this one I don't know. It is a better example than some he did include.

There's nothing else in the field that would be a likely candidate for the odd asymmetry of the galaxy. I didn't check very far outside the field, however.

The galaxy was discovered first by William Herschel on November 28, 1785 with Dreyer recording that as NGC 151. On August 9, 1886, over 100 years later, Lewis Swift found it but got the RA wrong by about 15 to 20 minutes of RA. In fact, Swift recorded four "new" objects that night all with a similar time error. Turns out only one was really new the other three were already in the NGC. Dreyer caught two of these but missed this galaxy giving it the NGC 153 entry it carries as well as the 151 it earned over a century earlier. It is in the second Herschel 400 Observing Program but my notes from that vanished when I moved to Minnesota.

The nights I took this were very poor for transparency and not all that great for seeing. Due to the poor transparency, I planned a total retake but after the luminance was taken conditions went from poor to worse and the second round of color had to be rejected. Color balance is a bit questionable due to constantly changing transparency. I hope it is about right at least.

This is a reshoot of a poor seeing attempt in 2013. Not because I meant to but because I forgot NGC 153 was also NGC 151 and thought I was taking something different. Luckily it turned out better than the original so the time wasn't totally wasted.

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

Related Designations for NGC0153

NGC0157

NGC 157 a spiral galaxy that's at a rather low declination for good imaging up here in the "far" north. Thus it isn't a very clear image. It will have to do for now. This galaxy is not part of a group. So that one unusual thing about it. Most galaxies are located on groups which are located in clusters which are located in superclusters etc. This one isn't one of those. Also, it appears to not have its quota of dark matter. Its rotation curve suddenly drops off. In a system with most of the mass at the center, such as our solar system, the objects farther from the core orbit more slowly than those nearer the core. Galaxies don't do this. Instead, they usually show a rather constant speed of the stars no matter where they are in the galaxy. Only in the very core does the expected speed seem to apply. Once out of the very center of the core the speed a star moves while orbit the galaxy is about constant. Since this defied both Newtonian and Einsteinian gravity it was a problem. Then it was discovered galaxies are embedded in a huge cloud of dark matter. Once this was taken into account the rotation curves of galaxies made sense. But this one turns more like Newtonian gravity would predict. Thus it has very little dark matter. Why? No one knows.

The galaxy contains a lot of star-forming regions but seeing was too poor the night I took this to bring them out. I'll have to try again if I ever get the needed seeing. Unlikely however as the time of the year it is best positioned is when warm and cold air is meeting in the fall to winter transition making for lousy seeing most nights.

The galaxy is located in Cetus. I can't find a good distance estimate but since it is a lone galaxy its redshift distance of about 60 million light years may be fairly accurate.

The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on December 12, 1783. It is in the original Herschel 400 observing program. My entry for September 19, 1985 using my 10" f/5 at 180 power on a fair but humid night reads: "Large, irregularly oval patch of galactic light. No nucleus was seen!! Bright field stars either side with a hint of a faint pair on top of it. Seen when low on a hazy horizon."

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

Related Designations for NGC0157