NGC0278

NGC 278 is a brilliant, face on, somewhat flocculent spiral in southern Cassiopeia about 6.5 degrees north of M31. That's about all I can find on it that astronomers agree upon. Distance estimates range from 14.8 to 38.5 million light-years. Some, including NED and the NGC project, classify it as a barred spiral SAB(rs)b. Yet others say it is just Sb adding: "Both optical and near-IR images indicate that this SAB galaxy is not actually barred." Others point to the spiral structure being traced to within 2" of the core which is either a point source or a 2" diffuse disk depending on which paper you read. There's little agreement on anything about this galaxy it seems. The spiral structure while of high surface brightness (unusually high in fact) has a very muted fuzzy look to it. I get the feeling I'm looking at it through a thick fog. The spiral structure is surrounded by a diffuse reddish disk. Or is it a sphere and this is what is creating the "foggy" look? Since there's a dark band separating the bright inner spiral structure from the outer red diffuse area and the features of the is dark band extend into the red, featureless area I'm not sure if the sphere idea works. I did a lot of pushing to get the spiral structure to show. Still, there's a foggy look to the galaxy to my eye. Processing the very bright spiral disk and the faint outer disk makes this one rather a challenge as the brightness range is unusually high. While I call the galaxy flocculent, unlike a typical flocculent galaxy the arm segments are organized into easy to follow arms, it's just that these arms are made up of many short segments.

As to the distance issue; if the galaxy is only 14.8 million light-years away then it is only 9500 light years across. That seems way too small to me to have such ordered structure. Galaxies this small are usually devoid of much recognizable structure. Even at the 38.5 million light-years it is only about 25,000 light-years across. While that fits its structure it seems unusually well behaved for such a small galaxy.

Conditions were poor for this image as noted by the broken trail of the bright asteroid (45878) 2000 WX29 to the left and a bit down from NGC 278. The gap is due to clouds. Note too the very start of the trail is the brightest portion (conditions were good when I started) then there's a very short break and it continues fainter as the trail fades away. I had to shut down for some time. Conditions did then look rather good so I started in. Note the start of the second trail is a bit brighter than the rest indicating it again went somewhat downhill. Color data was taken days later when the asteroid was long out of the field. Seeing was well below average though this is quickly becoming the new average, unfortunately. The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on December 11, 1786 but is in neither of the H400 observing programs.

The only other galaxy in the image that NED had any redshift data on is CGCG 550-017 below and a bit left of the start of the asteroid trail. Its redshift puts it somewhat over a half billion light-years distant. With only the two galaxies and one asteroid, I didn't bother to prepare an annotated image.

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

Related Designations for NGC0278

NGC0279

NGC 279 is a large galaxy in north-northeast Cetus that is about 160 million light-years distant. I measure its size at about 133,000 light-years. This one was suggested to me by Sakib Rasool who called it a shell galaxy. NED classifies it as (R')SAB(r)0+ pec: I can't say I see a bar but it certainly is peculiar. Shell galaxies are thought to be caused by stars ripped from galaxies it has absorbed. So are plumes of stars ripped from colliding galaxies. The dividing line between the two is so fuzzy I won't go there. Just that I note the far north and south regions of the plumes or shells are bluer than a red region that surrounds an inner bluer (still red) region. The overall shape is quite irregular, with bulges and a loop to the north and maybe south. For all its unique characteristics I found little about what might have caused its odd shape. SIMBAD even lists it as a possible quasar. I guess due to its bright core. At only 160,000 light-years I find that rather unlikely. It appears most died out a billion or two years ago. If true this one may be the nearest known. I just don't buy this, however. NGC 279 was discovered by William Herschel on October 1, 1785 but isn't in either Herschel 400 observing program.

This part of the sky is poorly studied for galaxies. Only a few had redshift data at NED. Some weren't listed as galaxies but as Ultraviolet Sources (UvS). One had a redshift that puts it over 5 billion light-years distant and another over 6. They may be true quasars though NED didn't even list them as a candidate quasars.

Since these were usually found by the GALEX UV satellite the positions are rather vague. The only one I've listed is so vague I'm not sure what object was meant. There are three overlapping galaxies to the upper left of NGC 269. The position is between the upper two, closer to the center one. But the error circle is so large it overlaps all three. Another was so vague several objects were in its even larger error circle but nothing was close to the center of the circle. I passed on including it.

I may not have even prepared an annotated image but for the 9 asteroids I've labeled. A couple others were so faint I didn't try to annotate them. The field is only about 7 degrees from the ecliptic. It's not uncommon to find a lot of them when imaging near the ecliptic. This isn't a record which is 13 or maybe 14, I can't recall but it is more than normal even near the ecliptic.

I should be used to some rather unusual names for asteroids but (17058) Rocknroll surprised me. Its naming citation reads: "(17058) Rocknroll = 1999 GA5
Rock and roll music, which had its roots in African-American rhythm and blues, remains a prominent form of popular music worldwide since hitting the charts in the 1950s."

There is a galaxy cluster near the top center of the image. I've labeled it though there was no galaxy seen at its center position which is just a bit right of a pair of galaxies or stars. No size was given but I see lots of possible distant near star-like galaxies in the area that I assume are part of the cluster.

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

Related Designations for NGC0279

NGC0296

The USGC U037 galaxy group is something you take waiting for the next Arp galaxy to get in position. It is a small group of 5 galaxies averaging about 250 million light-years away. This field is not well cataloged. Only about 20 galaxies in the image are in NED's catalogs. Only the 5 in the group have redshift data. The rather big blue galaxy on the western edge of my image isn't cataloged at NED nor is the very odd linear blue feature just southwest of UGC 244. On the raw image, I figured it to be a star and edge on galaxy of some sort. When both came back the same shade of blue I began to wonder if this was coincidence or it is just one object. Unfortunately, that is still an unanswered question. But after processing the eastern part, I thought a star, is elongated so it's not a star. Maybe two galaxies both very blue? If so they sure line up.

The biggest galaxy in the group is NGC 296, a nice spiral. But NED and the NGC project see it very differently. NED says it is SBb a barred spiral with moderately spread arms. The NGC project says it is Scd. A spiral (not barred) with much wider spaced arms. I think I see a bar when I enlarge the image but its arms seem wider than NED suggests so I'd say maybe SBcd combining the two to some extent.

The Sky and some other catalogs I have show NGC 295 in the image. They plot it close to NGC 296. Some put it almost on top of 296 as if it were a double listing. The sky moves it about 4 minutes of arc southwest. Dr. Corwin of the NGC project says it is "lost" though he hasn't searched too widely for it. The rest of the galaxies in the group are UGC 548, UGC 565, UGC 566 and UGC 567. Some catalogs list UGC 565 as NGC 296. So for a poorly cataloged area, it sure has some identification issues. It was discovered by William Herschel on September 12, 1784 but is not in either H400 program.

Distances in the annotated image -- all 5 of them -- are in millions of light years rather than billions I normally use. Three digits of accuracy I display are from NED (5 year WMAP) which far exceeds our ability to translate redshift into distance. A nice round quarter of a billion light years for all is more like it. NED lists distance measurements to NGC 296 ranging from 142 million light years to 261 million light years. That's quite a difference.

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

Related Designations for NGC0296

NGC0317

NGC 317 is a pair of interacting galaxies a bit under 4 degrees from the center of the far more famous and nearby galaxy, M31 in Andromeda. The pair is about 230 to 240 million light-years distant by redshift. Actually, it is a triple system with CGCG 536-014 to the south. The northern galaxy of the pair is NGC 317A and is classed as S0 by NED. A note at NED adds: "Neutral, spherical compact, with a faint blue halo." In my image, I see a blue blob in this halo indicated by the question mark in the annotated image. It isn't listed in NED. I have no idea what it might be. NGC 317A is about 47,000 light-years in diameter assuming the distance is about 230 million light-years.

The southern galaxy of the pair, NGC 317B is classed at NED as Sb though I also see SB? listed for its morphology and a note at NED says: "Blue, post-eruptive Sc galaxy." In any case, it has a large plume to the southeast. Is the faint blue plume about NGC 317A another plume from NGC 317B or really part of NGC 317A. Considering how red it is otherwise I sort tend to favor the first possibility. NGC 317B is also listed as being a LIRG or Luminous Infrared Galaxy. This could be an indication of strong star formation hidden from our view by dust. Though I found nothing much on this other than the LIRG mention. Ignoring the plume it is about 78,000 light-years across. Assuming the plume to the north is also part of this galaxy its diameter including the plumes is about 220,000 light-years. The galaxy is also known as UGC 00594. The pair was discovered by Lewis Swift on October 1, 1885.

To the south is CGCG 536-014 or as NED prefers UGC 00594 NOTES 01. This latter designation indicates the UGC gives the number 594 to both NGC 317B and CGCG 536-014. But the UGC gives NGC 317A its own number of UGC 00593. I don't understand this reasoning at all.

NED lists a few IR galaxies from the 2MASX catalog but none have redshift data and most don't even have a magnitude. Therefore I didn't list them.

I originally imaged this field back in 2007. My processing of it was very poor. Somehow my record keeping lost the fact I'd taken it so I reimaged it last January. But, as usual, conditions that night were the typical poor conditions I've had for far too long now. Back in 2007, I wasn't very careful about camera alignment. Those images were off of true north by about 3.5 degrees turned to the east. Back then I'd taken 7 ten minute frames trying for the plume but due to poor conditions that night as well it didn't come out all that great. Also, I only managed one 10 minute frame of each color. That data was really hurting. This time I took 10 luminance frames but due to clouds, only 4 were usable. Of the 4 frames for each color only 2 were usable. So this image is a combination of the two nights using a total of 11 luminance frames with all color from the new attempt. Since most of the luminance data was from the frames twisted eastward I kept that alignment. This resulted in having to crop quite a bit from the image so this one is somewhat smaller in size than normal but still at my normal 1" per pixel. For laughs, the December 2007 image can be seen at: http://www.spacebanter.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1614&d=1200603897 .

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=11x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC0317

NGC0337

NGC 337 is a strange looking, possibly barred, spiral located in Cetus 60 to 70 million light-years distant. I measure its size at about 50,000 light-years. NED and Seligman classify it as SB(s)d with HII emission. The NGC Project says Sc -- they see no bar, neither do I. It has no central bulge which is unusual. It's disrupted state may be due to a merger. Here is what one source says about it: "The arms in NGC 337 cannot be well traced from the nucleus. Perhaps part of the central pattern is a bar, from whose opposite ends originate two of the arm fragments, but the pattern is not regular. The association of the other segments with any overall spiral pattern as a whole is even less obvious.

"The irregular morphology of the arm segments may be due to a close encounter; this might be established if the small structure with a central knot (a nucleus?) and associated bar with its associated stubby (s)-type arms can be identified as a companion. But it is not certain that this galaxy is, in fact, a companion, or even if so, if it is ready to merge."

Another paper http://arxiv.org/pdf/1304.0447v1.pdf says it contains 8 ultraluminous X-Ray sources and is bulge-less. These may be due to the long-sought intermediate-mass black holes. They correspond to the bright blue and pink HII regions seen in my image. I thought one to be the galaxies core as it was slightly red but when I added H alpha data it turned out to be a bright nebula with the core a bit below it. I'm unaccustomed to seeing emission nebula this close to a galaxy's core. Checking the Sloan image it is bright blue indicating it is full of young UV stars. Sloan's filters miss H alpha so these regions are always blue in their filters. It is possible the quote above may be seeing this HII region as the possible "companion" it mentions.

The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on September 10, 1785 and is in the second Herschel object observing program. This is what put it on my to-do list. Oh yes, the galaxy has had two recent type II supernovas; SN 2011DQ and SN 9/2014. This is consistent with it being a starburst type galaxy.

Only one other galaxy in the image has a redshift value and that is one of a pair of galaxies on the right edge of my image. The one is at 1 billion light-years. The "companion" is not listed so could just be line of sight and not a real companion. I suspect they are a real pair but without more, I'm left guessing. With so little data I'd not have prepared an annotated image but then two asteroids appeared in the image so I prepared one to give the details on these two space rocks.

14" LX200R @ f/10, Ha=3x30' L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC0337

NGC0366

NGC 0366 is a small, type II3p open cluster in the center of Cassiopeia. WEBDA puts it at 5,800 light-years distant with an age of 25.7 million years. The only paper I found on this http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1994BASI...22..369P puts it at 7,000 light-years distant and gives an age of 25 million years. WEBDA says it is reddened by 1.256 magnitudes while the paper says the reddening varies across the cluster from 1.1 to 1.4 magnitudes. Indicating dust and gas density between us and the cluster varies quite a bit. The paper concludes it has a higher percentage of low mass stars compared to other clusters of its age.

The cluster was discovered by John Herschel on October 27, 1829. Dreyer describes it as "a cluster, small." To its south, just out of my frame, unfortunately, is NGC 358. It is apparently just an asterism of 4 stars so I didn't miss much.

But what I didn't miss is a nebula not found in any catalog I checked and I checked quite a few. It is located in the lower right corner of my image. It is a blue reflection nebula near a moderately bright star. The star seems unlikely as the light source as it is rather cool for such an illuminating star. I've made some inquiries but so far not heard anything. It does show very faintly on the blue POSS II plate and I found it in one amateur image. Again so faint the amateur didn't notice it. I saw it on the first frame that came in and thought it a reflection. I almost stopped the series but when I saw it on the POSS-II plate let it run to completion. It's coordinates at 01 04 13.59 +62 06 01.07. Since I first wrote this I've learned it really is unknown and no one cares. Reflection nebula like this are all over the sky and aren't dynamic objects like say a planetary nebula so aren't normally cataloged unless they have something that attracts researchers. This one doesn't. So it is destined to always be unknown. I did find it one one other amateur image, much fainter than on mine. Apparently he didn't notice it or feel it worth mentioning.

For some reason, I took only 1 red image. My series shows two were to be taken but only one showed up when I went to process it. Apparently, the system decided the rising moon would bother and didn't even try. It isn't supposed to do that. It is to continue anyway and if it must stop retake the frame the next usable night. We've had a couple but it didn't reschedule it. The image color seems reasonable so I'll ignore the missing frame.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' R=1x10' GB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick

Related Designations for NGC0366

NGC0381

NGC 0381/Collinder 10 is a type III2p open cluster in Cassiopeia. It was discovered by William Herschel on November 3, 1787 and is in the original Herschel 400 observing program. My log entry from July 11, 1985 with my 10" f/5 at 60 and 180 power reads: "Large, even, slightly oval, cluster of some 35 stars mostly 11th magnitude and below. Pretty at 60x but becomes sparse and scattered at 180x." The 180x comment pretty well fits my image. Though I couldn't begin to see the faint stars in my image so it likely stood out better than my image would indicate. Some sources credit it to Caroline Herschel but most don't think that likely.

WEBDA puts its distance at about 3700 light-years and gives an age of 320 million years. It is reddened by only 0.4 magnitudes. This likely explains the number of blue stars seen in the cluster. Those are likely the ones I was seeing visually as most of the less massive stars were likely too faint.

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




http://www.mantrapskies.com/image-archive/NGC/NGC0381/NGC0381L4X10RGB2X10.JPG

Related Designations for NGC0381

NGC0428

NGC 428 is one odd looking galaxy in Cetus. Redshift puts it 38 million light-years away. Unfortunately, the error bar of redshift is at least this great meaning it could be twice as distant. In fact, Tully-Fisher measurements put it between 45 and 54 million light-years distant. The longer estimate may be the more accurate. It is classed as SAB(s)m with HII emission. Galaxies of the Magellan class tend to look rather messed up. Are they naturally this way is the question. I see one note at NED that says; "Two bar-like bright regions suggest that an interaction may be occurring, and one of the bars has more bright knots than the other. The galaxy is not detected at radio wavelengths by NH." Usually, if there's interaction involved you'd expect rather high radio activity. If it is 50 million light-years distant it would be about 60,000 light-years across. If the redshift distance of is right then it is about 45,000 light-years across.

North of NGC 428 is the dwarf irregular galaxy LEDA 135629. It appears as a blue smudge. Was it torn apart by NGC 428? They have a similar redshift. But the galaxy looks rather typical of its type so I doubt any interaction. Still, they make an interesting pair. NGC 428 was discovered by William Herschel on December 20, 1786 but isn't in either H400 program.

Galaxy cluster WHL J011247.4+005254 is south of NGC 428. Its position is within a second of arc of a galaxy that is not listed at NED. Still, I think it likely the anchor of the cluster. The cluster is listed as having 12 members in a 1.38 minute diameter circle. Several other faint galaxies are within this area. Another galaxy cluster is at the bottom of the image a bit left of NGC 428. It, GMBCG J018.27683+00.82032 and the galaxy, GMBCG J018.27683+00.82032 BCG do have the same position. The cluster is listed as having 9 members with no size given. The galaxy cluster NSCS J011344+010621 is in the upper left corner at 2.3 billion light-years. NED shows it to have 19 members in a 2.65 minute circle.

SDSS J011310.00+005012.3, bottom center, has two very different redshifts given at NED. One puts it at about the same distance as NGC 428 while the other puts it nearly 400 million light-years further away. While it does seem to have a low surface brightness like others in the NGC 428 group I doubt the redshift measurement that puts it at the distance of NGC 428 can be right. NED also prefers the further distance.

Three asteroids are in the image:
(251334) 2007 EZ3 at magnitude 19.5
(244947) 2003 YP81 at magnitude 18.6
(127014) 2002 GY11 at magnitude 20

As usual, the annotated image shows the light travel time distance to all objects in the field that NED had the needed data. Labels are immediately right of the object unless a line is drawn to the object. Also, I included catalog names for objects likely part of the same group as NGC 428 as well as galaxy clusters. Interestingly, all galaxies in the vicinity of NGC 428 are dwarf irregular galaxies of very low surface brightness. While far larger NGC 428 is considered a low surface brightness galaxy that has little regular structure same as its traveling companions. There were quite a few noted quasars and UvES objects (likely quasars) in the field which are noted by a Q or the UvES label and their light travel time distance.

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

Related Designations for NGC0428

NGC0436

NGC 436 is a small tight open cluster in Cassiopeia near the far more famous ET/Owl cluster IC 457. Most sources put it about 9800 light-years from us. Though several of the bright stars seen in the cluster are far closer. The K0 orange star at the bottom of the cluster slightly right of center and the blue bright blue star in the center of the cluster are both much closer. I found differing opinions but they are less than 10% the distance to the cluster, some put them much much closer than that. The bright blue star below the cluster a bit left of center is listed at a bit over 1,000 light-years. In what I assume is a misprint The Sky puts its parallax at 3.2 or 11.5 light-years. I seriously doubt that as I can't find it in any listing of close stars. The similarly bright star to its left and up slightly is shown to be at 144 light-years.

WEBDA shows the cluster to be 84 million years old. That's old enough its most massive stars would have turned into red giants. If there are any they are likely the fainter red stars seen in the cluster. The cluster is listed as 4 minutes of arc across which means the bright red star at the eastern end of the line of three is well beyond the cluster's boundary.

The cluster was discovered by William Herschel on November 3, 1787, and is in the first Herschel 400 list. I worked from a preliminary listing which described the cluster as "Loose, poor and fairly large." That didn't fit at all as I recorded it as "Small, tight cluster of mostly faint stars." Then I went on to surmise the writer saw the field, not the cluster. I used my 10" f/5 on a good night here at the lake on July 11, 1985 and after stopping down the scope to the size of the writer's scope only saw 5 stars at 45x he used that were likely cluster members. Only 3 of those were true cluster members from modern measurements. At full 10" I saw about 20 stars at 150x.

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

Related Designations for NGC0436

NGC0446

NGC 446/IC 89 is a ring galaxy in southern Pisces about a quarter of a billion light-years distant. That would make it about 120,000 light-years in diameter a quite large galaxy. NED classifies it as (R)SAB0^0^ Sy? while the NGC project says (R)SAB. There seems to be a big divide in the literature on whether this galaxy is a Seyfert galaxy or not. Each side seems to think it's obvious and they are right. The galaxy was discovered on October 23, 1864, by Albert Marth but he got the position wrong by a bit over a minute of arc. There's nothing at his location. It was rediscovered years later by Stephane Javelle on August 20, 1892, who got the position correct. Dreyer, not realizing the duplication gave Javelle's entry the designation of IC 89. Some sources incorrectly show a galaxy just west of the southwestern corner of my frame as NGC 446. The faux NGC 446 is PGC 4494/UGC 794. If I'd have realized this at the time I'd have framed it differently so as to pick it up. Seems I need to research before shooting rather than after but I'm so far behind I doubt that will happen anytime soon. You can read more on this mix-up at the NGC Project under NGC 446 and IC 89. Each tells the story a bit differently but comes to the same conclusion.

The field contains two star-like objects that NED identifies as quasars even though there is apparently no spectroscopic data to support this. If there were then the z value should be given and it isn't. They are listed in the Gosset, Clowes, Surdej catalog of quasars. No other source identifies them as quasars.

The field is poorly studied. Very few of the background galaxies are even listed in NED as galaxies. Some are listed as UvS objects. Over 500 such objects are in this image, most being stars. No way I can determine which are galaxies without a one by one examination of their PSF in my raw FITs image. If I had a couple years of free time in a jail cell with nothing else to do I might try it. Otherwise, it isn't going to happen. Besides some of the background galaxies aren't UvS objects either so just not listed at all. Only NGC 446 had a redshift value. If not for three asteroids, two faint, I'd not have bothered with an annotated image. The bright asteroid is Stevebabcock. Its naming citation reads: "Steven Babcock mentored a finalist in the 2004 Discovery Channel Youth Science Challenge (DCYSC), a middle school science competition. He teaches at the Beaumont Middle School, Portland, Oregon."

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

Related Designations for NGC0446