NGC0185

NGC 185 is a dwarf E3 galaxy that is likely gravitationally bound to NGC 147, another dwarf galaxy. Both are considered satellite galaxies of M 31. NGC 185 is a bit closer to us than M31, probably about 2.3 million light-years. It is a LINER and Seyfert 2 galaxy with dust clouds near the core. All this indicates the core has been the scene of recent star formation. This is born out by the core's rather blue color. Normally the core of a galaxy is made up of old population II stars which due to age are usually quite red. Due to lack of star formation for billions of years only red stars remain. NGC 185 is an obvious exception to this general rule with a core that contains new, massive, short-lived population I stars. It was discovered by William Herschel on November 30, 1787. It is is the original Herschel 400 observing program. My notes from July 11, 1985 on a good but with rising third quarter moon reads: "Large, oval, puff of a galaxy that is larger than indicated. Seems more 4' by 5' to me. Easier than indicated even with a third-quarter moon rising in the east. Nearby NGC 147 was more of a challenge!"

I managed to image this one on a night of better than average seeing. It was one taken automatically. I set it up when seeing wasn't all that great so stayed at my usual 1" per pixel resolution. It could have been done at 0.5" for more resolution than seen here. One penalty for imaging while sleeping. Still, I was able to resolve many of the new star clusters in its core and many of the stars throughout the galaxy. I found an image of the core region taken with one of the Isaac Newton group's telescopes on La Palma in the Canary Islands. Which one I don't know but since they range in size from 1 to 4.5 meters and have superb seeing I thought my image compares quite favorably. I don't see the core as blue as they do but then I don't see the rest in the odd greenish yellow color they do either. Their image was taken using photometric BVR photometric filters rather than those designed for the color response of our eyes. This may account for the color difference.

NED, while identifying a few galaxies in the field has no redshift data on any but two that appear to be the same object with different distances and magnitude estimates. Both are within the error circle for the other which has 6 times the area of their normal error circle. This makes identification impossible as I see only near noise level smudges within that circle. NED shows a quasar without red shift distance which is very rare. In fact, I don't think I've seen that before. The error circle is huge, 5" of arc. Only stars in that circle are either too bright by far or a magnitude too faint by my measurement. No filter is given for the magnitude estimate, however.

Isaac Newton Group image:
http://spider.seds.org/spider/LG/Pics/n0185hi.jpg

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

Related Designations for NGC0185

NGC0188

NGC 188 is the northernmost and one of the oldest known open star clusters. It is less than 5 degrees from the pole and over 5 billion years old. What surprised me was that at such an old age it has a rather large population of blue stars. I found surprisingly few color images of this cluster but what few I found also saw the large population of bright blue stars. I was then surprised to learn there are 21 known blue stragglers in this cluster. They are common in globular clusters where the idea is that stars are so compact collisions near the core can occur creating a massive blue star in place of two old yellow or red stars. That doesn't seem reasonable for an open star cluster, however. It's thought these are close binary stars with one member now an unseen white dwarf. During its giant phase, the companion acquired most of the outer halo of the more evolved companion increasing its mass turning the star into a rather massive blue star while the evolved companion was quickly reduced to white dwarf status. But there are far more than 21 blue stars in my image. So which are the blue stragglers? I have no idea.
http://www.astro.wisc.edu/news-events/featured-science/fountain-of-youth-how-blue-stragglers-stay-young/ It was discovered by John Herschel on November 3, 1831.

While there are some galaxies in my image only two are listed in NED and neither has any redshift data. Several others, including several galaxy clusters are listed but none are identifiable in my image. The clusters seem to be seen mostly in X-ray "light". Therefore I didn't prepare an annotated version.

Imaging this near the pole requires highly accurate polar alignment. If it isn't virtually dead on exposure time will be severely limited due to rotation around the guide star. "Common sense" might say that since you are very close to the pole there's little movement so the alignment accuracy wouldn't be an issue. The problem is the further away from the center of your image you guide the worse the rotation is. At the celestial equator, my field is only about 2 minutes of RA across. Up here it is 27.5 minutes at the bottom of my image and 28 minutes at the top. The over 12 times increase is also a measure of how much more accurate polar alignment must be to avoid field rotation around a guide star. I avoid this issue by being so accurately polar aligned with a dense T-point map so that guiding isn't necessary. It really pays off when shooting this close to the pole. It might explain why so few color images are seen of the cluster and even those don't go very deep due to short exposure times. Likely some of these short times are due to rotation issues when near the pole.

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

Related Designations for NGC0188

NGC0192

Hickson 7 consists of the 4 NGC galaxies; NGC 192, 196, 197, 201. They are the 4 largest of a group of galaxies about 180 million light years away in the northwest corner of the constellation of Cetus. Westernmost NGC 192 is classed as (R')SB(r)a?. Its inner arms coming off the bar form a nice ring. Two very thin arms come off this ringlike structure. Is this a result of interaction with one or more others in the group sometime in the past? To the east is NGC 196, it is classed as SB0 pec? Like NGC 192 it is a rather red galaxy with few blue stars except in the outskirts. Below it is NGC 197. It also is classed as SB0^0 pec. But it is very blue and has a couple blue arc on its southwest side. Furthest east is NGC 201 which seems to me a very good candidate for Arp's "split arm" category. After the split the upper arc is very blue compared to the lower one. It is classed as SAB(r)c. Other than the split arm it is the only mostly ordinary galaxy in the group.

NGC 192, NGC 196 and NGC 202 were discovered by William Herschel on December 28, 1790. NGC 197 was discovered by Albert Marth on October 16, 1863.

As usual with well surveyed fields I've provided an annotated image. Galaxies identified by catalog entry that are members of the group and thus about 180 million light years away, are just dwarfs compared the the 4 major galaxies in the image. Those not members of the group are shown by their distance in billions of light years. The group member northwest of NGC 196 appears to have a faint plume through it. Probably comes from IC 196 but possibly those are its stars in the plume.

NED lists over 6 galaxy clusters as being in the image. Most I failed to identify. But notice the red galaxy near the bottom a bit right of center at 3.2 billion light years. It anchors the galaxy cluster SDSS CE J009.833157+00.701518. It can be seen as very faint fuzzies around the far larger core galaxy. Many clusters have a huge elliptical at their core. This one seems far larger in comparison to the other members however. A similar giant elliptical anchoring a cluster is near the left edge below center. Both are marked with a G/GC label. Though I see no obvious members for this second one. The only other galaxy cluster I could find is only 1.1 billion light years distant. It is near the left edge below center and identified with a GC label. In the lower left corner you'll find an object labeled UvES which is an Ultraviolet Excess Source, most likely a quasar considering its distance of 9.6 billion light years. To the NW is a small galaxy above the asteroid (22920) Kaitduncan. While it is reasonably bright it is another not in in the SDSS catalog or any other than the an entry in the Automated Plate Measurement United Kingdom Schmidt catalog of anonymous galaxies. How this happens is still a mystery to me. Usually, as in this case they are rather blue in color. I have no idea if that is coincidence or enters into the omission.

The faintest galaxy in the image that is labeled is the lower of two at 5.6 billion light years toward the lower right corner. It is 22.5. The upper one is listed at 22.2. The galaxy at the bottom just right of center at 6.6 billion light years is brighter, 21.5 but it is quite noticeably elongated spreading that light out making it harder to see. It must be huge to show an angular size at that distance.

There are 6 asteroids in the image. One, while barely visible on the luminance FITS stack was nearly lost when I stretched NGC 196 so it's full extent was visible. Using the clearer FITS data I've marked its location anyway. Of more interest are the two asteroids toward right center. Their trails virtually overlap. I never had that before. The asteroids and their magnitudes are:

(4126) Mashu 17.4
(27737) 1990 SA8 19.0
(13310) 1998 RX63 19.2
(22920) Kaitduncan 19.8
(62427) 2000 SH187 19.9
(48204) 2001 KG8 19.9

Mashu was bright enough its color channels barely show up. I've included them so the trail I show on the annotated image extends beyond the obvious luminance trail though you may need to enlarge the image to see it. Mashu's name is explained: "Named for one of the lakes in Akan National Park, which is located in eastern Hokkaido, a one-hour drive from Kitami and Kushiro. The caldera lake is 20 km in circumference, covers an area of 19.6 square km and has a maximum depth of 212 m. No rivers flow into or out of the lake, which is one of the most transparent in the world, although its surface is almost always shrouded in fog."

The other named asteroid Kaitduncan is named for another high finisher in the Intel science contest. Her asteroid's citation reads: "Kaitlin Duncan (b. 1989) is a finalist in the 2007 Intel Science Talent Search (STS), a science competition for high school seniors, for her behavioral and social sciences project. She attends the Plainedge High School, North Massapequa, New York."

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

Related Designations for NGC0192

NGC0206

NGC 206 is a large star cloud in M31 much like the much smaller M24 in our galaxy. Some time ago I did a high resolution image of C179, a much smaller star cluster with nebulosity. I got a lot of comments asking why I went with something no one had heard of when NGC 206 was there. The obvious answer is I prefer imaging what hasn't been a popular target for imagers and "everyone" does NGC 206. But then I was asked to do one for a possible publication so put it on the list. A year went by before seeing was decent enough. By then I was likely too late for the project that put it on the list. 2012 was a lousy year for imaging. I'd get one night where seeing was good for 10 minutes but not the 20 I want as a minimum for 0.5" reproduction. Over 5 months (August through December) I managed 8 10 minute frames with sufficient resolution for the luminance data. Color was another problem as transparency was hit and miss playing havoc with all my color data for 2012 and so far in 2013. I wanted 0.5" color data as well but that does need 40 minute subs for decent use and seeing for even 20 wasn't happening. I gave up and finally got 2 10 minute frames of each color under rather similar transparency. This image is the result of those 5 months of work on one object. While transparency wasn't as good as it was for C179 that cluster is visible to the upper left of NGG 206. It is bathed in H alpha pink.

Also note there are several distant galaxies visible through the disk of M31. The most obvious below NGC 206 and very slightly to the right. Other fuzz balls can be seen in the image that are also likely galaxies as they are not listed among the star clusters of M31. Nor does NED pick them up at all. Also there are other very blue star clouds to be seen as you scan around the image. Most toward the far right of my image. It feels rather odd to be scanning an image 4008 pixels across and stay within a small region of M31. When I got into DSO imaging nearly 60 years ago now (1956) I never dreamed I'd ever take an image at this image scale. I was happy to see NGC 206 as an unresolved blob in M31.

One thing I learned is that NGC 206 is home to several Cepheid and eclipsing binary stars. The DIRECT Project http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~kstanek/CfA/DIRECT/ has used these stars to determine the distance to the star cloud and a lot more in the galaxy and thus M31. I found nothing at the site saying what distance they found. APOD says they found a distance of 3 million light-years http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap990402.html which is further than most estimates I've seen. Original Hipparcos data said 2.7 million light-years which seemed to get reduced to 2.5 million or increased to 2.9 million light-years for reasons I never did discover. Now, this figure of 3 million light-years caught me by surprise. If right maybe we have another billion years before we collide with it.

NGC 206 was discovered by William Herschel on October 17, 1786. It is in the second Herschel 400 observe program as a "Bright Nebula" rather than a star cloud or star cluster.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=8x10'x1 RGB=2x10x2, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC0206

NGC0210

NGC 210 sure belongs on Arp's list though somehow he missed it. Could be the detail just wasn't visible to film of his time but the dust lanes were known in 1961. I had to really process the heck out of it to show the features near the core. Namely the odd dust lane(s) that cuts across everything and the ring of star clouds around the core. I see the dust lane on a couple internet images but didn't suspect the star clouds that popped out when I processed for the dust lane. I believe they are real as I can see them if I do a histogram stretch of the region with just the right values using the raw FITS file stack. The high pass filter though brought them out much better in the processed image. Most papers refer to there being two dust lanes. At first, I thought I saw two, a short one coming from the north to the core and a much longer one coming in from the south but after processing they merged into one. If so it/they may be a foreground feature and not part of the galaxy at all. Unlikely but possible I suppose.

NGC 210 is also odd in that it has a bright inner core (greatly reduced in intensity in my image to preserve detail) that is a tight spiral disk with a small nucleus. Outside this are two wide spread arms in a faint disk. There's only a faint hint of a bar connecting them to the inner bright region. Sort of like a barred spiral whose bar has faded nearly away.

I find it classed SbI one place, S(rs)b another and SAB(s)b yet another. NGC project says SAB(s)bI. Take your pick. It lies some 60 to 70 million light-years from us as best as I could determine.

A radio image if the galaxy shows it has an HI (non-ionized hydrogen) tail that extends down to and a bit past the galaxy to its southeast in my image, PGC 169998/2MASX J00410068-1358160. This is just a coincidence as that galaxy is some 700 million light-years distant and thus not involved. Though the tail does indicate it has interacted with some other galaxy in the past. No, it's not the one to the NE. I agree it is really strange as well and certainly could be a candidate. It is PGC2454/MCG -02-02-082 but it is 370 million light-years from us so too isn't a candidate. But it sure ran into something it appears.

More likely is NGC 178 out of the image to the southwest that tangled with NGC 210. It is still to be imaged, unfortunately. These are at -14 degrees so further south than I can go except for rare nights. I never got another after taking NGC 210 last fall. There are other candidates such as PGC 2465 out of the image to the north-northeast as well as some others that form a small group with NGC 210 being the core. All have redshift values in the 50 to 70 million light year range so likely do form a true group that could have had all sorts of interactions in the past.

This field is not covered by the Sloan survey so few galaxies are cataloged and most that are are just anonymous listings in the UK automatic plate measurement survey that records only brightness and crude spectral data. A few IR galaxies from the 2MASS survey are included as well.

The bright galaxy seen through the outer arms of NGC 210 at 4 O'clock is 2MASX J00403079-1353088. There's no distance data. The other galaxy seen through the outer disk at the 6:30 position is uncatalogued as far as I can determine.

The only other galaxy with a known redshift is southwest of 2MASX J00410068-1358160, the one the tail of NGC 210 extends to the southeast of NGC 210. Halfway between that galaxy and a bright blue star are a pair of spindle-shaped galaxies. The one on the left is 2MASX J00404728-1400190 at 680 million light years, about the same as the much larger 2MASX J00410068-1358160. Several other small galaxies are in the area. Are they part of this group? I have no idea.

Adam Block's image of this galaxy, http://www.noao.edu/outreach/aop/observers/n210.html, shows what appears to be an extended outer halo about the galaxy. I put more luminosity time into it, more than he did in fact, but I saw no sign of it in my stack.

It was discovered by William Herschel on October 3, 1785. It isn't in either Herschel 400 program.

An interesting article on this object is at:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/d716m73032388m6v/fulltext.pdf

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=7x10', RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC0210

NGC0218

NGC 218 is the western member of an interacting pair of galaxies. It is also known as PGC 2720. Problem is most sources, including The Sky and the NGC Project, for example, list PGC 2493 as NGC 218. So if looking this one up, be sure you go to the right galaxy. Arp had a category for galaxies exhibiting what he called "wind effects". This one certainly appears to belong in that very misleadingly named category.

NGC 218 is a highly distorted spiral that NED (they get the right galaxy) classifies as Sc while Seligman (also gets the right galaxy) says Sbc? pec. To my eye, Seligman gets it right. One paper considers it a starburst galaxy but does note there are peculiarities to its radio signature that don't fit a starburst galaxy. The galaxy, it is obviously interacting with, is MCG +06-02-017/PGC 2726. The pair are VV 527. Redshift measurements put the pair at 490 million light-years distant in the constellation of Andromeda about 5 degrees south of far more famous M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. This great distance means that NGC 218 is huge. Including the plumes, I get a size of 260,000 light-years. Ignoring the plumes and drawn out arm it is still over 100,000 light-years in size. The red companion is 115,000 light-years in size including the odd south going appendage and about 85,000 light-years ignoring it. NGC 218 was discovered on October 17, 1876 by Édouard Stephan.

For a discussion of the mix up on the identity of NGC 218 see http://cseligman.com/text/atlas/ngc2.htm#218 Unfortunately this was taken with the poor transparency and even worse seeing so I missed a lot. The best image of this pair I know of is Adam Block's image at: http://skycenter.arizona.edu/gallery/Galaxies/NGC218

In the southwestern portion of the image is a trio of interacting galaxies. They are well shown in Adam Block's image (32" scope on a top imaging mountain helps greatly) shows this trio quite well. I'd not found his image when I processed this image and at first though the faint plumes from this trio were not real but due to a dust mot that had vanished from the optical window of the camera. I almost processed it out but luckily decided to leave it in. The galaxy on the left is PGC 2077321. The one on the right is 2MASX J00454158+3614374. The one in the middle is a quandary. NED shows GALEXMSC J004542.42+361437.5 between the two but puts it 4" too far north. Its position error bar is only a bit over 2" in radius putting it too far north. But with nothing at the given position I have to assume the error bar is itself in error and this is the intended object. Unfortunately, NED shows no magnitude for it. The Sky has neither of the last two in its database. It does put a magnitude of 16.5 on PGC 2077321 which appears reasonable. NED doesn't even have a magnitude for it. I assume all three are interacting and kicking up the plumes. But I found absolutely nothing on any of these three.

As there's a lot to this one I missed I should try to reshoot it under better conditions but even then I'd not have skies like Adam has atop Mount Lemon in Arizona. Even my poor image makes it look like NGC 218 is trying to reach out and touch MCG +06-02-017.

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

Related Designations for NGC0218

NGC0246

NGC 246 (Caldwell 56), The Skull Nebula, is a large planetary nebula some 1600 light years away. It is one of the big ones, being over 2 light-years across. Making this one difficult for me is its rather low declination. All winter low in the sky has been very obscured by fog over the lake at night. That not only dims the image something awful, it also makes the seeing very poor so the image is fuzzy. This time it was so bad I have cut it to half size. Note the stars are really muted by the fog as well. Normally I'd not even run an image this poor but it's typical of what the sky has given me all winter. I did kill many dozen objects even worse than this due to conditions.

It was discovered by William Herschel on November 27, 1785. It is in the original Herschel 400 observing program. My note from September 10, 1985 at 60 power under fair but humid skies with my 10" f/5 reads; "Large, somewhat oval, planetary nebula, Easy with a UHC filter but difficult otherwise. Looks almost like a poor star cluster (only 4 stars seen) with involved nebulosity but UHC brings out its true nature. Two of the stars are within it while the other two were on its edge.

For a far clearer but false color image of it see the shot taken by Gemini South, one of the worlds largest observatory telescopes with a mirror 27 feet across compared to mine at 1.17 feet across. It collects over 500 times as much light as I can but cost about 5000 times as much. Its optical system was the responsibility of one of our astronomy club's early members, Larry Stepp, so many of us feel some connection to this pair of telescopes (Gemini North in Hawaii and Gemini South in Chili)
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060418.html

This was one of my very first images taken back when I had some very wrong ideas about how to take the images nor did I know how to process my data. Thus, while conditions hurt it so did my ignorance.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x5', R=4x4.75' G=4x4' B=4x3.75', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC0246

NGC0262

NGC 262 is a much studied spiral galaxy in Andromeda about 190 million light-years away. It somehow missed being in Arp's Atlas as it would fit his category for spirals with high surface brightness companions on an arm. The companion is LEDA 212600. While it is likely a true companion there's no distance data of any type to confirm this at NED. NGC 262 appears it could be somewhat tidally distorted. It is surrounded by a huge halo of cold hydrogen gas. This can be seen in the image at: http://images.nrao.edu/32 . The image is oriented the same as mine. This site says the companion has the same redshift as NGC 262. Note it lies well within the Hydrogen halo. It was discovered by Lewis Swift on September 17, 1885.

NED lists it in 57 different catalogs! Few other galaxies I've seen are in that many different catalogs. It is a Seyfert 2 galaxy though a couple catalogs list it as a quasar. NED and the NGC Project list it as SA(s)0/a: This means they see it as midway between a S0 and Sa galaxy and the colon indicates some uncertainty. Looking at old photos it shows no sign of the spiral arms so I can see how it got the S0 designation but today's images clearly show an Sa galaxy though the classification of old is still used. NGC 262 and its companion are two of three galaxies of the PPS2 083 galaxy group. Problem is I don't know for sure which galaxy is the third. The position is midway between these two and the blue galaxy near the bottom of my image. I assume it is the third member. Unfortunately, I can't find it in any catalog I have. It isn't listed in NED's catalog, SIMBAD's catalogs nor those in The Sky. The only other galaxy of any significant angular size is the edge on galaxy southwest of NGC 262. It is 2MFGC 00579 so considered a flat galaxy by the 2MASS survey.

I have an odd faint blob southeast of NGC 262. It is just east of a moderately bright, slightly red star. I can't find it on the Sloan survey image or POSS plates so it may not be real. There is a similar smudge northeast of NGC 262 but closer to it. It fills the space between a fainter blue star and a tiny blue galaxy. This smudge does show very faintly in the Sloan image so likely real. Also, it is within the hydrogen loop shown in the above image so may be related to it. I can't see anything that could cause a reflection to make the first blob but I think it's quite likely something did. I didn't edit it out just in case I'm wrong. I need to re-shoot this with a different center to see if it really is real or not. It does show equally well in all 8 subs so not a transient event. Nor does it match the cold hydrogen in the radio image. So far this year the weather has made that impossible.

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

Related Designations for NGC0262

NGC0266

NGC 266 is a classic barred spiral in northern Pisces right on the border with Andromeda. In fact, the western edge of the galaxy lies in Andromeda. It is some 200 million light-years distant and classed as SB(rs)ab. In fact, it is often the textbook example of that classification. It is a huge galaxy. Assuming the 200 million light-year distance it is some 180,000 light-years across.

While NGC 266 was discovered by William Herschel September 12, 1784 it isn't in either of the Herschel 400 observing programs by the Astronomical League. As a fairly normal barred spiral galaxy, why did I image it? I normally don't go for the ordinary objects. Looking around the net I found a fair number of folks have imaged it. The answer is that it was an accident. My to-do list does list NGC 0266 but then goes on to describe it as "NGC 0266 is a pair of interacting galaxies. The tail is long and straight -- faint" I go on to say it may be too far south then list the declination for the real NGC 0266 at 32 degrees north. Obviously, I made a mistake somewhere. I have no idea what interacting galaxy pair I meant. So instead I ended up with a rather photogenic galaxy image. If anyone figures out what galaxy's designation I scrambled please let me know so I can try again.

While I seem to have imaged the wrong galaxy it is interesting. The arm coming from the west side that loops over the one from the east side ends suddenly as if it and the disk between it and the other arm were bitten off by some huge galaxy eater (Super Godzilla) leaving a bit of debris behind. Otherwise, the galaxy seems very normal.

It is located in an area little studied for distant galaxies. Only one other galaxy has a distance measurement in NED. It is the elliptical like galaxy with a huge faint halo south of NGC 266 at a distance of some 870 million light-years. A third object is listed in NED with a distance of 230 million light-years. It is a radio source not listed as a galaxy. Its position has a radius error bar of 45 arc seconds which is huge. In the center of the error circle lies on a faint, highly distorted galaxy at the bottom of my image. I've indicated it with a question mark beside the name as it might or might not be referring to the galaxy in my image.

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

Related Designations for NGC0266

NGC0271

NGC 271 is a somewhat distorted, face on spiral in Cetus. Its redshift distance is a bit over 170 million light-years. Tully-Fisher measurements (all from the same data) range from 191 to 220 million light-years depending on how you look at that data. The value with the smallest error bar says 191 million light-years while a median value is 218 million. Pick your candidate or roll your own.

Off the southeast edge of the galaxy is a puff of stars. The arm had pretty well faded out then returns in this puff or is it a separate object? NED offers no help here. I note the other arm on the other side also fades then reappears though looks again like the arm rather than a puff. Still, it is likely it is just part of the arm.

SAO 128981 is an 8th magnitude star that gives trouble here. Its glare overrides the galaxy. Could that create a false sense of the drop in the arm's intensity creating the appearance of a puff? I don't think so, the drop off was quite obvious even through the glare of the star. I find no amateur images of this one but the various POSS images and the Sloan image all are bothered by the star but also appear to show the puff as real.

This area of the sky hasn't been well studied for galaxies. I found only 3 others with redshift data. One, to the southwest, has a similar redshift and is likely a companion. The other two were about a billion light-years out. Out of frame at the top right is UGC 00505 also at about the same redshift as NGC 271. Some sources list these three as a triple. The odd shape of NGC 271 might be due to interaction with UGC 00505. For reasons I can't determine I managed to not get it in the frame. My notes say to catch it yet I didn't.

NGC 271 was discovered by William Herschel in 1785 and at magnitude 12.2 moderately bright in a 10" scope. Yet it isn't in either of the Herschel 400 observing program lists.

One of the galaxies with redshift, in the lower left, is a face on spiral with featureless arms at my resolution. It is a rare galaxy in that it is both a strong IR source and a Ultraviolet Excess source. Hence I included both its 2MASS and GALEX designations.

Preparing an annotated image, especially in poorly covered areas like this results in lots of issues. A SCT scope can create ghost images that look much like faint dwarf galaxies. These I usually process out. Since several have asked me recently about them I left in the one that is in this image. It's above the 2MASS/GALEX galaxy. In well-covered fields, they are easy to spot as they are not in the various catalogs. But in a region like this where most are unlisted things get more difficult. They are faint and thus their absence from the POSS plates may not mean they aren't real. I have to download the FITS and then stretch like crazy. I also get the Sloan image when available (often not the case in these regions) and do the same. In this case, the Sloan image is available. Neither it nor the POSS images show any sign of it so it is quite likely not real. But at the top center of my image is a similar faint smudge that is real and in this case listed in NED though that is rare in fields like this one. It is [dIM97] J005019.82-014447.4. It shows how similar a real low surface brightness galaxy is to a ghost image the SCT corrector can create having a flat surface ideal for reflections. The odd linear feature towards its southern edge is a pair of faint stars not part of that galaxy. NED had no redshift for it so that is shown by "na".

Another issue is shown by the galaxy to the lower left, MCG +00-03-016. NED has no distance for it yet labels it a dwarf. In other images, I've seen similar "dwarfs" with a redshift value of over a billion light-years. Now you can't be a dwarf when 100,000 light-years across that these have to be or at a very bright magnitude as others can be. Something is wrong in these cases. But when there's no distance data is it really a dwarf or just another that isn't what is claimed? This one sure does look like it could be a dwarf so I didn't add a question mark but still I can't be certain that's the case after all the obvious errors I've seen in other fields.

Why some galaxies don't make a catalog and others do always amazes me. APMUKS(BJ) B004829.03-021415.6 is a galaxy in the Automated Plate Measurement UK survey. Just to its north is a galaxy that for some reason wasn't seen by the survey. Seems automation misses the rather obvious sometimes. Another reason the various Galaxy Zoo projects are finding so much not found by the computers.

The annotated image is sparse as few galaxies in the image had redshift values. I've labeled others without redshift data when mentioned above. Hundreds of others missed their 15 minutes of fame it seems.

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

Related Designations for NGC0271