NGC0450

NGC 450, located in Cetus, and it's "companion" UGC 807 would seem to qualify for Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies on two accounts. First NGC 450 is a low surface brightness galaxy which was Arp's first category. Secondly, it would also qualify as a spiral with a high surface brightness companion on its arm. Guess he figured he had enough of both. In many cases of his category for spirals with companions on the arms, there were no redshift values either at the time of his atlas or today to decide if they were real companions or just line of sight galaxies. In many cases, the small galaxy seemed undimmed by the dust and gas of the spiral. I'd mention I didn't think they were related with the small one likely far beyond the bigger spiral. I'd get challenged on that from time to time. I'd point out that its quite possible for a spiral to have used up most of its dust and gas except in obvious dust lanes so the lack of dimming didn't necessarily mean the companion wasn't a distant galaxy.

This galaxy fits my argument. In this case, we do have redshift values for both galaxies. NGC 450 is about 67 million light-years distant while its "companion" has a redshift that puts it at 500 million light-years! So it is a much larger galaxy seen very far away. Even though we see dust lanes in NGC 450 there's no evidence of attenuation of UGC 807 by dust and gas in NGC 450. Contrast is reduced at its southwest end due to being seen through a much brighter part of the foreground galaxy. Spectra data shows no additional absorption lines from gas in NGC 450.

NGC 450 is classed as SAB(s) cd: by NED and the NGC Project. UGC 807 is classed by NED as simply S for it is a spiral galaxy. The blue star-like object below the southwest end of the "companion" is considered "Part of Galaxy" so apparently is a bright blue star cluster. Below and left of it is a redder star-like object. This is considered an HII region in the galaxy. Right and down from the blue object is a fuzzier object. The Sloan survey lists it as simply a galaxy. I've seen this with what is really a part of the main galaxy. In these cases, NED makes note of this. Here they make no correction. No redshift is available to answer this. For now, it too may be a distant galaxy seen through this low dust and gas galaxy. But consider further down and to the right is a star-like point of about the same color. It too is listed as a galaxy. Just right of the core is an even redder "star" which too is listed as a galaxy. Many others are listed at NED. I see no hint of this population of similar "galaxies" beyond NGC 450's borders. So I have to think these are more likely star clusters or HII regions in NGC 450 or possibly a foreground star in our galaxy rather than true galaxies. It was discovered by William Herschel on October 1, 1785 but isn't in either H400 program.

The only other NGC galaxy in the image is NGC 442 in the lower right with a prominent dust lane. It is classed as Sa-Irr II by the NGC project and S0/a: sp by NED. The S0 part seems odd to me It gets the irregular tag due to plumes that seem to come off each end. While I see them barely in the raw FITS they didn't survive the gradient removal caused by 38 Ceti. That star threw nasty reflections all across the image, one right on top of NGC 442. I can't tell real plume from nasty reflections from 38 Ceti. I need to take the galaxy with the star out of the field to pick up the plumes. I didn't expect so much junk from the star. At 240 million light-years it is unrelated to NGC 450 or its distant "companion." It was discovered by Lewis Swift on October 21, 1886.

The image has quite a few quasars and distant galaxies. Their distances in billions of light-years are shown in the annotated image.

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

Related Designations for NGC0450

NGC0457

NGC 457 the Owl Cluster. At least that is what it was called for many years. Then Steven Spielberg made a movie called ET and everyone looking at this cluster decided it was ET pointing the way home. The effect is quite startling visually. But it seems missing in most photos. Partly because they aren't oriented with ET standing upright but mostly because our eyes pick out the brightest stars and make them into patterns. However, a picture compresses brightness range so much the bright ones are only slightly "brighter" than dim ones (just larger rather than brighter) so we don't see the pattern so well. In any case, the two bright stars look like eyes, either ET's or the owl's. The body goes down and wings or arms spread to either side. Those on the right side (ET's left) are bright an look like an arm and spindly finger pointing the way home. This is lost in photos however. Some say the two stars are part of the cluster, some say one is and some say neither. Again. they seem to have different distances. The cluster seems to be about 9000 light years away while the stars are likely much closer. If they too are at that distance they would be about the brightest stars known making our sun look like a candle compared to a searchlight. They appear to be massive bright stars but no where that massive and bright. I reduced the image to 1.5" per pixel. This helped condense the star cluster some. WEBDA puts its age at only 21 million years with a distance of just under 8000 light-years. The show a reddening of 0.47 magnitudes which due to the young age of the stars just made them less blue than they'd be otherwise.

The cluster was discovered by William Herschel on August 8, 1780. It is in the original H400 observing program. My entry with my 10" f/5 at 60x on a good night reads: "Large, scattered, bright, elongated cluster. It is easily seen in binoculars. Now called the "ET" cluster. I can't see "ET" as one eye is so much brighter than the other."

This is one of my earliest images and processed with limited tools and ability. It's another I need to retake but likely won't. When I first looked for information on the cluster back in 2006 I used Babelfish to translate a German website. That site translated, not to "Owl Cluster" but "Heap of Owl". I can't get that out of mind even over a decade later.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x5' RGB=3x5', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC0457

NGC0488

This one reminds me of a hypnotist's spiral or maybe a time vortex. O'Meara calls it the Whirligig Galaxy

NGC 488 is a tightly wound spiral (SA(r)b) located in Pisces about 90 million light-years away by redshift measurement or 95 by Tully-Fisher analysis of its rotation rate. Being nearly face on that must be a tough measurement. It seems to be made up of mostly arm segments that go only about halfway around then fuzz out. Still, I seem to see but one continuous spiral if I follow the fuzz between segments. This is easier to do if the image is enlarged some. Unfortunately, seeing wasn't all that good so I had to limit my enlargement to only 33% or 0.75" per pixel.

The field isn't covered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey so few of the galaxies are cataloged. I've labeled all that are and include distance data for those few that had it. One galaxy cluster (GC) is annotated in the image. The line points to its center. NED shows it containing 17 galaxies but gives no size. It shows it as about 3 billion light years distant. Most members in my image appear to be east of the center.

The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on December 13, 1784. My entry from the original H400 with my 10" f/5 on September 6, 1985 at 110x with some aurora lighting the sky reads: "Lage, oval patch of a galaxy. Seems to blend into the nearby field stars making it difficult to see. Seems rather elongated (about 2.5'x1'). This may be influenced by the effects of the field stars mentioned above."

There is one "bright" asteroid of 19th magnitude and several of 20th. Due to the bad seeing and low transparency as well as their rapid motion they are fainter than normal. I didn't label the 20th magnitude ones. The gap in the trail is due a meridian flip 20 minutes into the image. On cold winter nights like this one (outside temperature was below -30C) I slew at only 30% normal speed. That means a couple minute delay in the flip. The gap is longer than this as I apparently allowed 7 minutes for the flip instead of the 3 I usually program in. Even 3 would have shown a gap, however.

Due to my mind seeing this as a time vortex I've included an "enhanced" version.

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

Related Designations for NGC0488

NGC0514

NGC 514 is a rather low surface brightness spiral in southeast Pisces. Redshift puts it almost 100 million light-years distant while non-redshift measurements say 83 million light-years. It is a nice face on spiral. While listed at 11.6 magnitude it appears much fainter visually by a note I made in 1987 about it. It was discovered by William Herschel on October 16, 1784 and is in the second H400 program. Unfortunately, my log from that vanished during the move to Minnesota. A note from another time looking at it made the fainter than expected comment but nothing else. While many in the second program are featureless elliptical galaxies this is one of the better ones.

The field is in an area of the sky that isn't well studied for galaxies. While there are many in the field they are mostly distant ones by their appearance. The three with redshift value identified by NED as galaxies are over 2 billion light-years distant. I see a few that are close enough to show some detail. I've identified those even though I found no redshift for them. They are all ultraviolet objects found by the GALEX satellite which couldn't determine redshift. Apparently, they have not been followed up to find this value.

There is one object, only identified as UvS by NED, meaning it too is an Ultraviolet Source, that has a redshift value. That is a verified (s) spectroscopically determined redshift so should be accurate. That puts it nearly 12 billion light-years distant. Only a quasar should be seen by my system at that distance. Though it isn't even listed as a candidate quasar. Also, the position's error circle is over 2 seconds of arc in size with no magnitude given. While my position is near the center of that error circle I can't verify the star-like object is the one NED lists. Just that there's something I can see that is close to the center of the error circle.

There are three asteroids in the image. More actually, but conditions were so poor these are the only ones I picked up. Two are partly off the edge of the image. My luminance data as two gaps in it, Why I didn't record but it appears clouds caused my system to pause for them to clear enough to continue. Though the edges are surprisingly sharp. In any case that divides the luminance data into three parts. In the case of two of these asteroids, only two of the three are seen. They are moving from the lower right to upper left, normal motion rather that retrograde I usually see. The one at the bottom of the image is missing the first of the three while Cupido on the left is missing much of the second and all of the third segment. The reason I think clouds are involved is the third only shows the middle segment. The other two were too faint to register though parts of the third are hinted at in the last FITS frame. In any case, its trail varies in intensity as if clouds were involved. My limiting magnitude is about 1.5 brighter than normal, another indication I was imaging through clouds.

Cupido belongs the Flora family of asteroids that occupy the very inner portion of the main asteroid belt. They may be all do to a major collision of asteroids. (8) Flora is by far the largest at 140 km and was the 8th asteroid found. Some think the dinosaur-killing asteroid was a member of this group.

My wife and I had gone to town for supper and thinking the night good I'd left the system to take images. Coming home I saw the sky had gone cloudy and found the observatory has shut down but left the roof open as it will if clouds are too thick to image through but thin enough for hope it might clear -- which it did.
(763) Cupido was discovered September 25, 1913 in Heidelberg, Germany by Franz Kaiser while working on his Ph.D. He found 21 asteroids while working on his degree. This was the 12th. The naming citation is hidden from me by copyright and I'm not paying the steep price for the book that information is in. My somewhat Spanish speaking wife (she grew up in a town of 80% Mexican-Americans) tells me it is Spanish for Cupid. If anyone has the book "Dictionary of Minor Planet Names", edited by Lutz Schmadel please let us know more. Amazon sells it for $91.6 for the hardcover and over $200 for the paperback version. Or did they reverse that by mistake? Springer, the publisher sells the Ebook for "only" $179. I'm curious but not that curious.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=1x10' (observatory shut down due to poor skies), STL-11000XM, Paramount ME


http://www.mantrapskies.com/image-archive/NGC/NGC0514/NGC0514L4SX10RGB1X10.JPG
http://www.mantrapskies.com/image-archive/NGC/NGC0514/NGC0514L4SX10RGB1X10ID.JPG

Related Designations for NGC0514

NGC0521

This is some of the NGC 0533 galaxy group located about 210 to 250 million light-years from us in northwestern Cetus. The group contains some 16 members scattered over the image and beyond. While named for NGC 0533 it was NGC 0521 that attracted my interest being a classic face on barred spiral though the bar is unusually narrow. Also, it is classified as having an internal ring. To me, it is a pseudo-ring (r') because it appears to just be two spiral arms coming off the bar that almost but don't quite overlap. I moved it a bit west of center to better pick up NGC 0533 and put them all low as I thought I saw some galaxies to the north. But I was looking at a rotated image, they were really to the south so I lost IC 1694 I particularly wanted to catch. It is a double ring galaxy which would have added a lot to the image. Don't make my mistake.

I found no image of this field taken by an amateur and only one of just NGC 521 that involved a few amateurs and one pro. It was taken by Adam Block and some amateur students of his astrophotography class at Mt. Lemmon's Caelum Observatory using their 32" scope. Other than this it appears totally missed by amateurs. Why such a neat field is ignored I can't fathom. I've had it on my to-do list since before I built my observatory but weather has been so bad when it was within a hour of the meridian it hadn't been taken until last month. Amateurs are always asking "What else is there to image?" There are hundreds of ignored fields like this few take the time to hunt down. I find the hunt a great cloudy night activity and I learn a lot in the process As a retired university prof I'm all for learning. Now to get back to the image.

Normally I find a fair agreement between redshift and non-redshift distance measurements. Not this time. In the case of NGC 0521, the non-redshift measurement has it only about half as distant as the redshift measurement does. I'm going with the redshift as being more likely reasonable as nothing else in the image is at that distance while the redshift fits the NGC 0533 group. If correct the galaxy is nearly 190,000 light-years across. That makes it a huge spiral. If the closer distance of 110 million light-years is right it is just under 100,000 light-years across. While that would make its size more reasonable papers seem to call it an immense spiral which fits the larger size and distance. One source I saw says it has a Low Luminosity Active Galactic Nucleus (LLAGN) though NED didn't mention this. NGC 0533 has only a redshift measurement for its distance of 240 million light-years which results in a size of 275,000 light-years. One paper says of it "We detect no features in this galaxy." These are two huge galaxies. Both were discovered by William Herschel on October 8, 1785. I expected one or both to be in one or both of the Herschel 400 programs but they aren't in either. That really surprised me.

I calculate a projected distance between the two at about 1 million light-years. It's likely at least some of the redshift difference is real and they aren't this close. I'd expect to see some deformation if they were really that close for any significant period of time.

Also confusing as to distance is a quasar or AGN1 object between the two galaxies. NED has two different redshift values for it both by the same astronomer! One is z=1.56 and the other z=0.75 putting it either 9.53 or 6.61 billion light-years distant. While neither are listed as being photographic redshift estimates the lack of significant digits would indicate these are photographic redshifts. These can be hard to determine. It appears there may have been two solutions to the data. This is one reason I usually mark such quasars as quasar candidates as often they turn out to be blue stars in our galaxy once a spectroscopic redshift is determined. Not knowing enough to tell what category it belongs in I've just listed NED's data rather than try to pass judgment on this one.

Also in the image to the left side is the center of the Abell 0189 galaxy cluster. One of Abell's lesser galaxy clusters. It has less than 30 members that fit its magnitude limit covering a one-degree circle. Its distance is listed at 431 million light-years. I see only a couple galaxies at about that distance in my image. The cluster is morphology class III indicating it has little to no core galaxy or galaxies.

While not a member of the Abell 0189 cluster centered within my image, some claim the two and a few others may be members of the nearby Abell 194 cluster whose distance NED shows to be 230 million light-years. The center of the cluster is about 3 degrees to the south. NED lists its radius at a bit under 2 degrees. So this pair is a degree beyond the edge as defined by NED. Not knowing how NED decides the edge of a cluster I can't agree or disagree with this position.

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




http://www.mantrapskies.com/image-archive/NGC/NGC521__NGC0533/NGC0521__NGC0533L4X10RGB2X10.JPG
http://www.mantrapskies.com/image-archive/NGC/NGC521__NGC0533/NGC0521__NGC0533L4X10RGB2X10CROP150.JPG
http://www.mantrapskies.com/image-archive/NGC/NGC521__NGC0533/NGC0521__NGC0533L4X10RGB2X10ID.JPG

Related Designations for NGC0521

NGC0522

FGC 163/NGC 522 is a flat galaxy in central Pisces about 110 million light-years away by redshift. Other measurements have a mean value of 130 million light-years and median value of 110 million light-years, a rather good agreement. NED lists it as a Sc galaxy while the NGC Project says Sbc:. It is about 80,000 light-years in diameter but less than 11,000 light-years thick. It was discovered by Heinrich d'Arrest on September 25, 1862. There's a tiny, most likely very distant, edge on spiral on its east side. It isn't listed at NED or SIMBAD for some reason. so I can't tell you anything about it.

There are quite a few other galaxies in the image but few are at its approximate distance. IC 101 is its closest neighbor at a redshift of 96 million light-years. It is classed as Sb? and was discovered by Stephane Javelle on December 2, 1893. I calculate its length to be about 45,000 light-years. While appearing only slightly smaller IC 102 is actually much large as it is about 6 times more distant at 630 million light-years. That makes it about 146,000 light-years across, over three times the size of IC 101. It is listed as S0/a and was also discovered by Javelle the same night as he found IC 101. A couple other galaxies have a similar redshift that are therefore all likely members of the same local group.

I've identified all galaxies with redshift data and the brighter ones without such data and a catalog entry that isn't just its sky coordinates. Most only are known by their coordinates and most of the others are only in very obscure catalogs.

The image also contains 8 asteroids, all quite faint which caused me to stretch the image a bit more than I'd normally do to bring them out better. Only one has a common name LOFAR. Yes, it is named for the radio telescope. Its naming citation reads: "LOFAR (LOw-Frequency ARray), a novel radio telescope, proposed by Leiden astronomer George Miley and inaugurated in 2010, consists of tens of thousands of individual low-frequency antennas, distributed over north-western Europe, with its core region in the Netherlands."

But it is the asteroid (288112) 2003 WA60 that interests me. Note how the first half of its trail is a lot brighter than the last half. I can't see that as conditions as the other asteroid trails don't show this wide variance. My first thought was the first half of the trail was atop a distant galaxy or maybe a pair of stars. But this field was taken by the Sloan telescope which goes deeper than I do and it shows nothing at this location. Thus the trail really did have this variation. It seems too sudden for even a highly elongated asteroid to turn from sideways to end on but that's about all I can think of. I suppose a brilliant albedo feature than suddenly went into shadow could do this but I've not heard of any asteroid having such a feature. I'm rather lost for ideas what could cause this. Too further complicate the issue (211946) 2004 XF92, to the lower left, does just the opposite and, even vanishes for part of its trail. The first half of its trail in the second frame is very dim. For the last half, it comes up brighter but not to where it was in the first frame. It then stays at this brightness in the third and fourth frames. These are behaving very strangely indeed.

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

Related Designations for NGC0522

NGC0536

Hickson 10 is a group of 4 galaxies located a bit over 200 million light-years from us in Andromeda 3.5 degrees east-southeast of Beta. It consists of the 4 NGC galaxies 529, 531 536 and 542. Redshift measurements show LEDA 169778 and CGCG 521-029 as likely members of the same group but then it isn't such a "compact group" as Hickson describes for his list. On the annotated image I also have included in parentheses the Tully Fisher distance determination when available.

NGC 536 and NGC 531 appear likely an interacting pair in the group as both show large plume-like drawn out spiral arms typical of near misses. The arms of NGC 536 appear severely warped as well. Neither, however, show a strong blue color. Both seem to have plenty of dust and gas from which new stars are often triggered by such interaction. It could be this is hidden behind all the dust and gas. NGC 536 does have a very active nucleus as shown by its AGN status. This often indicates a galaxy that has been severely shaken up by interaction. NGC 529 has an extensive, somewhat blue halo much as if it is the result of a rather recent merger though I found nothing in the literature on this.

NGC 529 was discovered by John Herschel on November 17, 1827. NGC 531 and NGC 542 were discovered by R. J. Mitchel on October 16, 1855. NGC 536 was discovered by William Herschel on September 13, 1784. It isn't in either of the Herschel 400 programs.

Only 14 galaxies in the field were even listed in NED. Being close to the "Zone of Avoidance" this region isn't as well mapped as regions further from the plane of our galaxy and its obscuring dust. All are listed by catalog name on the annotated image. Redshift, when available, is shown. If there are any quasars in the image they are still to be discovered or at least listed in NED's database. One asteroid was caught at the top center of the frame. As was common for much of 2012 and now in 2013 transparency was poor as indicated by how weakly the asteroid appears. Normally a 19th magnitude asteroid would be much stronger.

The "brilliant" 6th magnitude star HD 8673 near the bottom right of center created a huge reflection issue sending all sorts of them across the image. That made for a processing nightmare. I'll admit I cheated on this one. I gave up removing the reflections and saved the stars and galaxies creating a false background for about 60% of the image. Extensive gradient removal over the rest results in a somewhat fake looking background but it beat the reflections I was dealing with.

HD 8673 turns out to be a star with a known planetary candidate HD 8673b. In dealing with the reflections its intensity has been greatly reduced in this image until it appears only slightly brighter than other much dimmer stars in the image An unfortunate side effect of my reflection removal technique.

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

Related Designations for NGC0536

NGC0559

NGC 559 is an open cluster in Cassiopeia about 4100 light-years according to WEBDA. They put its age at 56,000 light-years with reddening of 0.79 magnitudes. The cluster was discovered by William Herschel on November 9, 1787. It is in the original Herschel 400 observing program. I logged it with my 10" F/5 on July 11, 1985 at 60x on a good night. I was working from a preliminary list. Apparently, I had a problem with the text in this preliminary copy as my entry reads: "Small, tight ball of faint stars at east end of a large scattered group of field stars. Again the writer missed the cluster as the bright star he mentions is a good 12' away east the cluster. Most stars are 13th magnitude or fainter! I only saw 5 obvious stars (not 60 he mentions) stars when I stopped down to 6" on a good night. This writer seems to be copying Burnham's." Other notes indicate I couldn't see 60 stars even at 10"

I took this one early in my digital imaging career and it shows. The night wasn't good and messed with the color channels. At the time I didn't know how to deal with this. I need to do a complete reprocessing of this one or better yet get new and better data as I was able to only get 2 10 minute luminance frames that were usable. The color frames were equally poor.

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

Related Designations for NGC0559

NGC0600

My target for this image was NGC 615 on the far left in central Cetus. I moved it left when I saw NGC 600, a rather interesting low surface brightness barred spiral could be fit into the frame. The core and bar of it are quite bright but the arm structure rather faint without much fine detail but for all the star clouds on the faint arm to the south that seems pulled away from the rest of the galaxy.

NGC 615 has a strange dust lane that cuts right across the inner spiral structure. This makes it rather similar to NGC 210 I posted back on September 28, 2010. In the case of NGC 615, the dust lane is far more obvious, however, but doesn't make an "X". NGC 615 is seen more edge on which might make the dust more obvious.

NGC 600 was discovered by William Herschel on September 10, 1785 but isn't on either Herschel 400 observing list. NGC 615 was also discovered by William Herschel. He found it on January 10, 1785, 8 months before finding nearby but fainter NGC 600. NGC 615 is on the original Herschel 400 observing list. My notes from a fair but humid night using my 10" f/5 reads: "Very small, faint round galaxy. Seems to have a starlike nucleus surrounded by a bright ring located half way to the edge of the halo. Very interesting but hard to see due to the small size and need for averted vision." Odd I said round when it is very oval. Seems I wasn't seeing but the red portions of the galaxy and missed the faint outer blue arms entirely. I needed 150x to see it very well the notes indicate. I made no mention of NGC 600 so like Herschel likely missed it at the time.

Both galaxies have a redshift that puts them about 70 million light-years distant and thus likely part of the same local group. Their size is similar at about 71,000 light-years in diameter. If they are at about the same distance then their separation is only about 620,000 light-years making them much closer to each other than we are to M31.

The field isn't well documented in NED. The only other galaxy in the field to have a redshift is the dwarf galaxy KDG 007. While its redshift is almost the same as NGC 615 indicating it may be a satellite of it the only non-redshift measurement puts it much closer. I can't follow the reasoning used for this however as it assumes this dwarf is a member of the NGC 1313 galaxy group. Now that group is nearly two hours east and almost 60 degrees south of the dwarf! Again that famous Asian astronomer Sum Ting Wong may have struck again. But since NED includes that reference I included it.

6th magnitude HD 9562 was moved out of the field at the top. Even so, it cast a huge blaze of light into the frame that was a pain to deal with. Fortunately, this is a rather sparse field for faint distant galaxies so I doubt it cost much detail to deal with it.

Two rather bright asteroids and 3 faint ones photobombed the frame. See the annotated image for details. If not for them I'd not have made the annotated image due to lack of data on this field.

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

Related Designations for NGC0600

NGC0609

NGC 609 is a type II3r open cluster in Cassiopeia about 13,000 light-years distant according to WEBDA. They put its age at about 1.7 billion years making it a rather old cluster and thus explaining its lack of bright blue stars which have long since died. It shows only about 0.35 magnitudes of reddening not enough to redden it to any appreciable degree. Thus its age is the main reason for its unusually red color. It also apparently has a rather high mass to have held together for so long.

Being that we are looking through the galaxies plane and thus its disk its no wonder the field lacks any galaxies. NED lists only two in my field, both very faint that appear nearly the same as a faint star. No redshift data is available for either so I didn't prepare an annotated image.

The cluster was discovered by Heinrich d'Arrest on August 9, 1863. As it is a rather obvious cluster I find it rather odd that it wasn't discovered earlier. Though it is very faint and likely almost unresolved in the telescopes of the day. It certainly isn't as easy a visual target as my image would make it appear.

I'm not happy with the color as the blue channel was wiped out by smoke. I need to take the blue without the smoke screen rather than push it to unreasonable levels as I did here. Another for the reshoot list.

Many atlases give a position a minute or sometimes more east of the cluster's center including the NGC itself and WEBDA.

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

Related Designations for NGC0609