NGC0752

NGC 752 is an open cluster in southern Andromeda. WEBDA puts it at 1800 light-years distant while SEDS and Seligman say only 1300 light-years. Adding to the confusion The Sky's Hipparcos data shows the brighter blue stars in the cluster at about 500 light years, one at only 56. There are an unusually large number of red giant stars seen across the cluster. WEBDA puts the cluster's age at 1.1 billion years. Old for an open cluster thus quite likely some of its stars are currently red giants. SEDS says it is a degree across which means it extends far beyond the borders of my image though when I look at the POSS plate showing a two degree field it appears most of its stars are within my field. WEBDA says the cluster has no significant reddening.

The cluster was first recorded sometime before 1654 by Guillermo Hodierna. Unfortunately for the Sicilian astronomer, he published his finding of this and several other NGC and M objects in an obscure Sicilian journal where it was never seen by Dreyer, Messier, Herschel etc. Later William Herschel found it on August 24, 1783. Caroline independently found it a month later. It is in the first Herschel 400 observing program. MY log entry from July 14, 1985 using my 10" f/5 at 60x reads: "Large, scattered cluster of mostly bright stars. Best seen in my 10x50 binoculars or my 60mm scope at 24x. It is pretty well lost in the 10" scope." Given that description and the even smaller field of view of my present imaging system, I have no idea why I put it on the to-do list.

Quite a few galaxies are in the image, most small and star-like. Only two have redshift data at NED. CGCG 522-095 is the spiral galaxy to the lower left. It is just listed an S.. at NED. I'm not sure what those two periods mean. Redshift puts it at 630 million light-years from us. 2MFGC 01474 is the flat edge on galaxy to the upper right. It has a redshift that puts it 650 million light-years away indicating the two may be part of the same group. NED gives no classification for it.

This was taken through a nasty haze that didn't limit brightness all that much but sure did put bright halos around the stars and severely brighten the field in the area of the bright cluster stars. My removal of this is rather ham-handed I'm sorry to say.

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

Related Designations for NGC0752

NGC0753

NGC 753 is a nice three-armed spiral that is a member of the Abell 262 galaxy cluster. While the cluster has a radius of about 1.75 degrees and NGC 753+ is over a degree from the center of the cluster several papers describe it as being; "Relatively close to the centre of the A262 cluster." I don't see how that quite matches my idea of "relatively close". In any case, Arp had a classification for three armed spirals in his atlas. This one didn't make the atlas but seems a better example of this feature than some he did include. It has one major arm above the core and two fainter less defined arms below. The upper arm also would seem to fit his category for spirals with one heavy arm at least as well as M101 does that he did include. The inner portion of the arms seems to form somewhat hexagonal ring rather than being a smooth spiral. Makes it look rather kinked. NED classifies it as SAB(rs)bc, the NGC Project says Sc and Seligman says SBbc. Take your pick. The galaxy is 210 million light-years distant by redshift. A bit closer by Tully-Fisher measurements The galaxy was discovered by Heinrich d'Arrest on September 16, 1865.

As if NGC 753 possibly qualifying for Arp's atlas of peculiar galaxies under two different categories wasn't enough to get me to image the field it contains two other galaxies I had on my list. So I was able to catch 3 different targets in one frame. The galaxy I was actually more interested in is V Zw 156. A strange red and dead disk galaxy with a faint outer blue ring. I really needed more time to catch this faint feature but I was again fighting conditions and never again did this object have sufficient seeing when within my limited imaging window of 2 hours either side of the meridian at its elevation so this never happened and I had to go with what data I was able to catch. Also, while it was the one I was most interested in due to its odd ring it is the one with the least information available. I couldn't even find a distance estimate but suspect it lies far beyond the Abell 262 cluster, unlike the other two galaxies I was after.

The third object is a flat galaxy, FGC 218, an Sc galaxy seen edge on. Redshift puts it 240 million light-years distant with Tully-Fisher measurements saying it is a bit further. It too is a member of the Abell cluster as are the other two galaxies in the image with redshift data. They are on the western side of the image which puts them closer to the center of the cluster. CGCG 522-082 is hiding behind a red and blue star-making is spiral structure hard to see. NED apparently has no better view than I do listing it simply as Spiral. One Tully-Fisher study of the galaxy came up with 4 different distances depending on how various factors were considered. So while redshift shows it at 290 million light-years, a reasonable value for a cluster member, the 4 T-F estimates from the same data set give a range of 71 to 280 million light-years. That's quite a range! CGCG 522-083 is the other cluster member that can be identified in this frame. It is 210 million light-years distant by redshift and classified as Sa. No non redshift distance were available. There may be others but without redshift data there's no way to know.

This field is located in southern Andromeda near the border with Triangulum. My post of the core region of Abell 262 was posted back on December 13, 2011 under its other name "The Fath".

This is my first November image. Conditions were no better than in October unfortunately.

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

Related Designations for NGC0753

NGC0765

NGC 765 is a rather low surface brightness face on spiral once you get beyond the central region. It is located in northwestern Aries about 220 million light-years out. NED classifies it as SAB(rs)bc. The NGC project says it is as SBb/Sc spiral whatever that is trying to say while Seligman says SBbc. While catalogs say it is about 4.5 minutes across, I get 6 minutes in my image using the ends of the two faintest arms. That makes it a super gigantic spiral at over 250,000 light-years across. It was discovered on October 8, 1864 by Albert Marth and was listed as #52 in his catalog.

It is in a pretty lonely region of space, at least as far as my image is concerned. Only NGC 765a has a similar redshift distance and is a likely neighbor. It is barely in my image on the eastern edge. But then NED has a redshift value for only one other galaxy in the image. I've again made an exception and labeled all galaxies listed at NED in the frame even though they are only positional names and without any distance data. That's only because there were few and far between but for a tight group toward the top somewhat right of centerline. With no redshift, I can't say if they are related or not. NED shows no group in this area.

With lower than normal transparency I found time to get 6 luminance frames over two nights and was planning more but lousy skies managed to change my plans. The additional frames never happened. You'll have to look close to see the full extent of the arms due to my limited skies and exposure time.


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

Related Designations for NGC0765

NGC0784

NGC 784 appears rather similar to the WLM galaxy in my previous post. Though it may be quite different. It is located in Triangulum about 15 million light-years distant. While it appears smaller than WLM it is more than 4 times further away so is actually nearly three times larger at 30,000 light-years. NED classifies it as SBdm: meaning it is a barred dwarf spiral similar to the Magellanic Cloud galaxies. It was discovered by Heinrich d'Arrest in 1865 with an 11" refractor. As it is a fairly easy galaxy in my 10" visually it is a wonder it wasn't found earlier. Notes at NED indicate it isn't fully resolved into stars indicating it is much further distant than its redshift would indicate (less than 2 million light-years by that measurement). Even the 15 million light-year distant would be close enough for it to be well resolved I'd think. That likely means most of the star-like objects I'm showing are star knots. A few are star clusters which can be seen in the annotated image though you might have to blow it up a couple times to find them. One is far removed from NGC 784. Does it belong to LEDA 166065 instead of NGC 784? That galaxy is also at about 15 million light-years and thus likely related to NGC 784? It seems far removed from it as well. NED doesn't distinguish open clusters from globular clusters in distant galaxies so I can't say which these are. Most have a slight red color so I'm going to assume they are globulars but can't prove it. My shot of planetary nebulae in M31 showed some objects thought to be globular clusters in M31 were really distant galaxies. Could that be the case with some of these clusters, especially this last one that's all by itself? With no redshift, I can't tell.

The field is rather poorly studied. Only 2 other galaxies had redshift data and only 5 others were even listed in NED! All are shown in the annotated image. One asteroid did make an appearance. You'll note it as a streak then a gap then one short streak. This is because I started a second luminance round of 4 images hoping to get some of the fainter parts of NGC 784 but clouds had another idea and cut me off after only one luminance image from the second series. I never had a similarly good night to get more data without hurting my resolution so went with what I had.

Like the WLM galaxy, I did the same night, the observatory floor lights were on during this image session. It did add a rather nasty gradient across the image, far worse than in the WLM galaxy for some reason (light in the back of the camera?). The strong measures to remove it resulted in a rather artificial looking background. The clouds that cut off the night saved any further harm as I found the error before the next clear night.

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

Related Designations for NGC0784

NGC0799

NGC 799 (top) and NGC 800 are two probably interacting galaxies in north central Cetus about 260,000 light-years distant by redshift. The pair is just below the celestial equator. Using J2000 coordinates NGC 799 is about 6 minutes south of the equator which lies just about halfway between it and the top of the image. Using current coordinates the equator is only one minute north of the galaxy so its upper edge is almost reaching it. That shows how much the earth's wobble (precession) has changed coordinates in 16 years.

NGC 799 is classed as a (R')SB(s)a: galaxy by NED and Seligman. Seligman says (R) rather than (R'). The NGC Project, however, ignores the pseudo ring saying it is simply SBa. Notice the outer rings don't seem to connect to the bar or any part of the central oval of the galaxy. Thanks to these huge but low surface brightness arms the galaxy is some 140,000 light-years in diameter.

NGC 800 looks like it could have made Arp's category for three armed spirals though the eastern arm is really a spur from the south going arm. Besides the spur, the south going arm has a kink at its southernmost extent. It then fades but can be traced to where it nearly parallels the other main arm in pointing to NGC 799. The north going arm seems to be reaching out to NGC 799 and the entire galaxy appears slightly stretched north and south. The core even seems a bit oval north and south. I thought it might result in it being called a barred spiral but that's not the case. NED says SA(rs)c: while Seligman leaves off the questioning colon. The NGC project says simply Sc. Again they ignore any mention of a ring structure which in this case NED and Seligman say is what the inner region resembles due to the tight arms around the core region. It is about half the size of NGC 799 at about 78,000 light-years. The separation of the two cores, assuming they are at the same distance from us is actually less than the diameter of NGC 799 at 137,000 light-years. If that close they have to be interacting which I think is evidenced by both main arms of NGC 800 ending about when pointing to NGC 799. Thus the northern arm is much shorter than the southern rapping only half as far around the galaxy likely due to tidal forces from NGC 799.

Both galaxies were discovered by Lewis Swift on October 9, 1885.

There's a likely third member of the group in the upper left corner. It is a much smaller galaxy ASK 035151.0. I can trace its size to about 39,000 light-years on the luminance FIT but that is too faint to survive the JPG. That part is only 17,000 light-years across. No one has attempted to classify it. I assume it would be considered a dwarf irregular galaxy. I wonder if the large, extremely faint region around the brighter core might not be due to it having at one time passed close to either or both of the NGC galaxies.

Unfortunately, I was fighting bright blue airglow the night this was taken which drown out the full extent of this little galaxy. Then being in the corner of the image where vignetting is present doesn't help to pull it out either.

Some time back when covering the Abell 2626 cluster (on January 5, 2016) I mentioned I was surprised by not one quasar in the image. Several contacted me about the comment. Usually, in a well studied field several quasars are turned up, sometimes quite a few. It may be this field was studied only for the cluster and never looked for quasars which are usually star-like and sometimes found by radio rather than optical scopes. This field makes up for the cluster as it has 14 NED considers quite likely quasars with good spectroscopic redshift measurements that pretty well cinch it. Another has its galaxy slightly resolved (not by me) and thus is listed as both a galaxy and quasar while the 16th is listed as a UvES (Ultraviolet Excess Source) with only a spectroscopic redshift. These sometimes turn out to be stars with odd spectral characteristics when seen photometrically that mimic quasars. So this field has 14 to 16 quasars depending on how you count these last two. Far above average making up for the Abell 2626 image. Actually, there were several more but thanks to the strong blue airglow they didn't survive the removal of the blue airglow. Under good conditions, they'd have been quite easy bringing the count up by three. Several more are just outside the top and bottom of the field. This field turned out to be quite a nest of quasars for some reason. Since Arp thought most, if not all, were ejected by active galaxies I wonder what he'd have made of this field?

One of the quasars I've labeled as FSRQ which stand for Flat Spectrum Radio Quasar a rather odd class of quasar not well understood, at least by me. So I won't say any more on it.

This is my last 2015 image taken December 7 with the rest of the month unsuitable for deep sky imaging. Like much of my imaging in 2015 conditions were well below what I'd come to expect based on the first 8 years I was here. 2014 was well below those base years and 2015 even worse. 2016 isn't starting much better. But my backlog is way down and while I'm 3 months behind only January had more than one or two usable nights.

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

Related Designations for NGC0799

NGC0812

NGC 812 is a very asymmetric spiral with no disturbing galaxy in the field. So how did it get this way? Nothing I found tried to explain this. It just is this way. It would seem to fit Arp's category for galaxies with narrow filaments. Or maybe galaxies with a rat-like tail. I suppose it could be the result of a merger. The core region seems rather disorganized. This one is pretty alone in the universe and apparently not studied all that much. NED and the NGC project both class it as S pec. It is located in Andromeda north of Gamma. It is thought to be about 225 million light-years away. It was discovered by Édouard Stephan on Devember 11, 1876.

Only one other galaxy in the image has a redshift value and it is mostly out of the frame to the south. It is below the orange star near the bottom right of center. Only its top portion is visible in the full image. It is CGCG 538-017, an S0/S galaxy also at about 225 million light years. Looking at it on the POSS 2 plates it doesn't appear distorted so doubt it had much, if anything, to do with how NGC 812 came to its present condition. North of it is HFLLZOA F052, a very blue galaxy classed as dE/N (a dwarf, nucleated elliptical galaxy). There's not much more on it, not even a magnitude estimate.

The flat S0 galaxy north of NGC 812 is 2MFGC 01633. It shines at magnitude 12.3 in K band IR light. Far brighter than seen in visible light of my image as this is about the same total light of the apparently far brighter NGC 812. To the northwest of NGC 812, two thirds of the way to a very bright blue star is HFLLZOA F049. It is tucked between two stars and left of a third, brighter star. This is the only other galaxy NED lists that isn't in the 2MASS IR catalog. About 15 others are. The vast majority in the image aren't in any catalog NED currently carries. The field is well within the "zone of avoidance" that the Sloan survey tends to avoid so it hasn't, as yet, covered this part of the sky. The HFLLZOA catalog does list galaxies in this area as shown by the last three letters of its name. But most in this field were too faint for this catalog or already included in the 2MASS survey.

The glare oval at the top left of center is due to the 8th magnitude star, SAO 37778, hitting the edge of the imaging detector.

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

Related Designations for NGC0812

NGC0828

NGC 828 is a very beautiful galaxy that I'd have expected to be very well known but is virtually unheard of. I can't find any professional images of it and only a half dozen amateur images. It is a highly disturbed spiral with a huge dust lane. Most sources attribute these features to it being a merger in progress using several different lines of reasoning. It is classified as Sa: pec and has a LINER core with strong HII from the core as well. Radio shows two peaks 4" apart in the core which could be the massive black holes of the two galaxies one of which is off center. The galaxy is about 230 million light-years distant both by redshift and the median value of non-redshift determinations. That distance would make it some 150,000 light-years across including the plumes. Prior to the interaction, I would assume it was far smaller but it is hard to understand what it might have been like prior to the merger. My wild guess puts it at about 55,000 light-years before the collision. While NED doesn't list it as being a starburst galaxy one paper I found does.

The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on October 18, 1786. It isn't in either of the two Herschel 400 observing programs.

I put NGC 828 well to the west of center and down to also pick up another strange galaxy, VI Zw183. The CGPG says of it: "Pair of large Sa [m(pg) = 14.6 [CGCG] with blue disk and halo. Plus blue spherical compact companion 13 arcsec west." What I see is a red S0/a disk galaxy with blue wings. Apparently, this is really two galaxies, one a red disk seen face on and a faint blue galaxy directly behind it such that only the ansae show as "wings" to the red disk galaxy. The blue compact doesn't begin to look blue in my image. NED had no redshift for it so I can't say if it is related or not to the red disk galaxy. While NED has a redshift for the larger galaxy I can't tell if it applies only to the red disk galaxy or both. I'll assume this is only the red galaxy as there's little to go on for the blue tilted galaxy behind it. How far behind I don't know. I was unable to find any high-resolution image of this one or three I should say.

Located in southeastern Andromeda it is in the zone of avoidance so the area is little studied for galaxies. This meant only these two galaxies and one other had redshift information. The pair of blue stars at the bottom of the image gave me processing fits. While 6.82 and 6.09 magnitude and A1V and B9v their combined light and double halo were nasty to deal with. Apparently, they are only a line of sight pair as Hipparcos puts them at 1700 and 260 light-years distant respectively.

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

Related Designations for NGC0828

NGC0829

While you might think my target here was the trio of NGC galaxies it was really the galaxy group or cluster of which these are the three brightest and largest members. I never did find a name for the group with a group count that came close to how many that lie in this field at about 150 to 170 million light-years by redshift. Most are about 160 million light-years distant. 4 are Markarian (Markaryan) galaxies, including NGC 0830 in this image. Markarian galaxies have strong ultraviolet cores. Some so far into the ultraviolet it's not seen in standard RGB images. This is why NGC 830 has little blue in it. Many, including MRK 1024 are starburst galaxies. Benjamin Markarian released 1500 such galaxies over the years since 1967 through 1982. 15 more have been released so the catalog runs through MRK 1515 though a few also carry MRK 9000 numbers. Why I've not determined. If someone knows let me know and I'll add that to this text. The catalog is limited to galaxies between 17.5 and 13th magnitude.

NGC 0829 is a nice blue spiral most classify as SB(s)c pec? though I've seen Sc? as well. Visually it appears to have a bar but that can be misleading. NGC 0830 is classified as SB0-? by NED but E/S0? by Seligman. In this case, I don't see a bar but again it is usually radio data that shows the bar rather than visual data. These two were discovered by Heinrich d'Arrest on September 23, 1895. NGC 0842, however, was discovered by John Herschel on January 8, 1831. d'Arrest did mention it when logging the other two. NGC 0842 is classified by NED as SB?(r:)0^0^ and S0? by Seligman. Again the question of the bar divides these two sources. Since I see a ring around the core I wonder why Seligman didn't include it in his classification.

The field is full of much smaller galaxies that appear to be members of the group these are. I measure NGC 0829, including the very faint westward plume at 66,000 light-years, NGC 0830 at 72,000 light-years and NGC 0842 at 91,000 light-years. All are smaller than our galaxy. Markarian 1019 is 29,000 light-years across, Markarian 1023 is 14,500 light-years across and Markarian 1024 is 28,000 light-years across. It is the only really blue Markarian galaxy in this group.

Besides all the galaxies at 160 million light-years there are some very distant ones with one over 9 billion light-years distant according to NED. They didn't classify it as a quasar but unless it is a super humongous large and bright galaxy it most likely is a quasar rather than just a galaxy.

All objects listed as quasars are listed in details as candidate quasars. All but one has only a photographic redshift (p) which can be misleading. But one has been listed with a spectroscopic redshift. These are usually highly reliable which makes me rather certain it is a quasar but NED listing it only as a candidate quasar bothers me. What else at that redshift could it be?

There are two faint blue smudges in my image. KDG 013 is a listed in a dwarf galaxy catalog but has no redshift data. It is southwest of NGC 0829. I suspect it is much closer than the other galaxies in the image though the other blue smudge in the upper left corner below and right of MRK 1024 may also be close and be a contender for the closest galaxy. Neither NED nor SIMBAD lists it in any catalog so it is completely unknown. It has a faint tail to the southwest. This field is low in my sky where seeing isn't very good so detail is limited by seeing and faint detail lost due to my atmospheric conditions this low being poor for transparency.

The annotated image notes three asteroids that snuck into my frame.

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

Related Designations for NGC0829

NGC0864

I have no idea why I imaged this NGC 864. I can't find it in my to-do list nor was it on my to process list until I found it doing some housekeeping on the hard drive. It is a somewhat interesting barred spiral in Cetus about 60 to 70 million light years distant so rather close, by my standards.

I found the notes at NED oddly contradictory. One says: "Strong, slightly curved bar..." while another says: "The central oval forms a weak bar...". Strong or weak it does have a bar. In spiral galaxies, bars tend to feed dust and gas into and out of the cores of galaxies. This can trigger star formation both in the core and in the arms. This flow shows as a dark lane down the middle of the bar. This dark flow channel is quite obvious in my image, especially in the western bar. Often this flow results in starburst activity in the core of the galaxy. While NED classes it as SAB(rs)c with no starburst mention I found this odd note at NED: "There is a remarkably small circumnuclear starburst ring with a radius of slightly less than 100 pc. The blue light from this starburst appears to dominate the visible light from the nucleus." Sounds like the core should appear blue but I sure see no hint of it. In fact, such starburst activity is usually hidden behind dust creating an IR strong galaxy that would be picked up by the 2MASS and possibly the IRAS survey. Sure enough, this galaxy is listed in both. While the core is somewhat whiter than in many barred spiral it is still on the red side in my and all color images I found of this galaxy.

The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on October 25, 1785. It didn't make either of the H400 observing programs.

There is very little on the rest of the field, however. The only other galaxy with redshift data is NGC 0864 COM01. It is the small SO type somewhat blue oval near the left edge of my image below NGC 0864. It has a very similar redshift so likely is related to NGC 0864.

There are a ton of faint distant galaxies in this image. Unfortunately, none have redshift data and only a few are even cataloged by NED. Two galaxy clusters are noted in the image. I've marked their centers and distance in billions of light-years. NSCS J021527+055458 below the galaxy and 5.6 billion light-years away is listed as having 17 members in an unknown area. NSCS J021440+055700 to the west at 3.12 billion light-years is larger with 49 members but again no size is listed. Quite a few faint fuzzies are seen around these two locations. Are they members of the cluster? I don't know. NED didn't have sufficient data available.

There are 5 "bright" asteroids in the image and several that I see in the Luminance stack but buried in the noise too far to bring out. The brightest, 2006 SM363 is listed as 19.1 magnitude. The rest are listed between 19.7 and 20.2 though they seem rather similarly bright in the image so I have some doubts about the Minor Planet Center's magnitude estimates. For instance, 2001 FS96 at magnitude 20.2 estimated has the longest trail of all in the image yet is brighter than some with far shorter trails.

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

Related Designations for NGC0864

NGC0869

NGC 869 is the western half of the famous double cluster in Perseus. WEBDA puts its distance as 6,800 light-years. Its age is listed as 12 million years. This makes it a very young cluster and explains the lack of red giant stars. Reddening is listed at just under 0.6 magnitudes. The cluster's discovery goes back to 130 B.C.E. when Hipparchus saw the double cluster. I don't find if he was able to see it was two separate objects though I doubt he did. Tycho Brahe and Johann Bayer also saw it but I found no dates. Both seem to have seen it as one object. Bayer gave both the designation of Ç Persei. Calling the eastern member "h" didn't happen until sometime in the 1840's. The next date is when Giovanni Hodiera recorded it sometime shortly before 1654. As he used a crude telescope he likely knew of the double nature of this fuzzy patch in the sky but still recorded it as one object.

This was one of my very earliest images. At the time I had some very wrong ideas about exposure time and how to limit glare around bright stars. As a result, I used only 3 two minute exposures for each filter. Still, it came out better than it should have once I reprocessed the original data using tools I didn't have when this was taken in 2006.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=3x2' RGB=3x2', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC0869