NGC2460

NGC 2460 and IC 2209 are a pair of probably interacting galaxies in the southeast corner of Camelopardalis about 70 million light-years distant by redshift. Tully Fisher measurements, however, can't agree saying IC 2209 is 81 million light-years distant while NGC 2460 is 100 million light-years away or 20 million light-years more distant. If correct they aren't interacting. Still, there's an obvious plume running between the two that appears to come from IC 2209 which has a second obvious plume going to the northwest. NGC 2460 has a bright red central spiral surrounded by a very faint, chaotic blue spiral. Beside the plume between the two, there is an odd linear feature with a couple knots. The annotated image points to the ends of this feature. The knots seem to be redder than the rest of the feature. It seems to be a product of the plume between the galaxies and may be made up of several unrelated features that just happen to line up. This one needs more time than I gave it under the conditions which were rather poor both for seeing and transparency. Typical for this year, unfortunately.

This area of the sky is poorly studied with only 3 other galaxies having redshift data at NED. Only one more has a designation other than a positional designation from the 2MASS survey in the deep IR. There is a small round galaxy on the north edge of NGC 2460. It isn't even listed in NED so noted with a question mark.

Notes at NED all indicate the two galaxies are not interacting. However, all these papers are very old, all about 30 years old or older. More puzzling is a note about IC 2209 which states: "The nucleus is blue, while knots in the peripheral region are not." This is exactly backward from what I see in all images on the net including my own. Notes about NGC 2260 disagree with its classification as SA saying it does have a small bar and even one claims there might be a weak secondary bar! I don't see one in my image but the one they refer to is small. Due to lousy seeing, I may not have resolution sufficient to see what they are looking at.

Assuming the 70 million light-year distance NGC 2460's full extent (not including the plume which may be a feature of the companion) is about 140,000 light-years. That makes it a very large galaxy but most of its luminosity comes from the red spiral portion which is only 30,000 light-years across. IC 2209's diameter, excluding plume(s), is only 14,000 light-years making it a very small spiral. Both have strong activity which may be due to their interaction. NGC 2460 has an AGN core (Active Galactic Nucleus) indicating an actively feeding black hole at its core, while IC 2209 is a starburst galaxy indicating massive star formation is going on in it.

I just wish seeing had been better so I could resolve these two better. Yet another for the reshoot list. I fought clouds throughout the frames. They finally won when I took the last frame, a green one. I had to throw it out.

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

Related Designations for NGC2460

NGC2500

NGC 2500 is a nearby low surface brightness face on spiral galaxy in central Lynx. NED classifies it as SB(rs)d with HII emission. The NGC project says SAB. The bar is short but obvious. The arms are in disarray causing one source to call it a flocculent galaxy. I just see lots of star clouds that align in semi arm segments. Redshift puts it about 29 million light-years away while non-redshift measurements say 33 million, a rather good agreement. Outside the star cloud region is a very faint haze of somewhat blue stars that extends further on the northwest side than the other sides. This gives the galaxy a rather lopsided appearance.

The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on March 9, 1788. It made the second Herschel 400 list and thus was on my to-do list but at a low priority. Turns out the galaxy is quite isolated with no nearby companions.

Using the non-redshift distance value of 33 million light-years the galaxy is about 38,000 light-years in diameter. Only slightly smaller than an average spiral. But this includes the very faint outlying regions. If limited to the bright portion then it is much smaller at 22,500 light-years. If the redshift distance is used it is slightly smaller yet. It's likely the stars of the galaxy don't suddenly end as the edges of my faint regions but continue on out just too faint for my exposure time so the full size of almost all galaxies is likely larger than I can measure it.

NED indicated it had HII emissions and the RGB data showed blue blobs that were likely new blue stars and likely marked the H alpha regions. Just that these new massive stars being so bright they hid the pink of H alpha and beta. It doesn't take much of a cosmological redshift to move the H alpha out of my 6nm passband. But this galaxy was still within my passband. So, with a quarter moon in the sky, I took 2 hours of H alpha data. Turned out it was quite weak but a few of the blue clouds did show up. I added the H alpha to the color data (not the luminance) and it made a small difference. The annotated image was made before I took the H alpha data so you can use it to compare to the other images with the H alpha. It was hardly worth the effort but there's nothing else to do on a bright moonlit night. It didn't help that the moon wasn't all that far from the galaxy so I may have lost a bit of contrast to it though I doubt I lost very much as I saw no hint of a gradient from it or anything else in the data.

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

Related Designations for NGC2500

NGC2506

NGC 2506 is a type I2r open cluster in Monoceros. It seems there's little agreement on anything else. I find an older paper saying it is 9,000 light-years distant and 3.5 billion years old, later studies say 11,000 light-years distant and 2 billion years of age. WEBDA says 11,000 light years agreeing with a 1981 study but puts its age at 1.1 billion years. It still has some blue color to many of its stars. That would argue against the older ages though WEBDA shows it little reddened, less than 0.1 magnitudes. Other papers say the cluster is of low metallicity which results in stars being at least a bit bluer than similar aged stars with the sun's level of "metals." That may complicate the age issue some. WEBDA puts its metallicity at -0.37. The lower metallicity may be due to its significantly more distant location from the center of the galaxy. At least one paper suggested this.

The cluster is a great imaging target but I found few amateur images of it considering it is a lot more photogenic than most I take. It was discovered by William Herschel on February 23, 1791. It is in the original Herschel 400 observing program. My entry dated March 23, 1985 at 60X on an average night with my 10" f/5 reads "Small, very rich cluster consisting of a dozen bright and 100 or so (at least it seemed like that many) 13th magnitude and fainter stars. The guide reports nebulosity seen in a 6". This must be due to these faint stars as I saw no hint of nebulosity in my 10". I didn't try my 6" f/4 on it, however."

My image shows no nebulosity either. Seligman says of the visual appearance of the cluster: "NGC 2506 consists of several hundred faint stars thickly scattered across a region 8 to 12 arcmin in diameter. The cluster is not very impressive visually, as few of its stars are bright enough to be seen individually, and the rest merely form a faint hazy background; but it is a beautiful photographic object." He must be using a smaller scope than a 10" or under poor skies as I apparently was seeing a lot more of its stars.

There are only a couple star-like galaxies noted at NED in the field neither with redshift data so I didn't prepare an annotated image. Both were from the 2MASS survey. Others without sufficient IR emission may be in the image as they are poorly studied due to its location in the Zone of Avoidance.

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

Related Designations for NGC2506

NGC2541

NGC 2541 is a rather shaggy looking spiral galaxy in Lynx about 32 to 38 million light-years distant. Since nearby galaxy redshift can be dominated by other factors than cosmological expansion I'll go with the 38 million light-year distance. I measure its size at about 82,000 light-years. I suspect a longer exposure will show it a bit larger. It was discovered by William Herschel on March 9, 1788. It is in the second H400 observing program.

I found only a very few amateur images of it. So while it is a rather large galaxy with detail making it a good amateur target most have either ignored it or overlooked it. Searching forums for visual descriptions by amateurs I found few references to it as well. So I went to the two main Hubble sites and sure enough, the Space Telescope site returned an image when I asked for NGC 2541. Unfortunately, that was an image of NGC 2500! OOPS. Bring on the conspiracy theories, NASA got it wrong! When asked for NGC 2500 it returned the exact same image. I was hoping the two were somehow interchanged but no such luck.

Speaking of errors there's an object east of the southern end of NGC 2541 that NED shows as a galaxy. It gives it a redshift of 5.851988. That puts it less than a billion years from the beginning of the universe. Could a galaxy large enough to show as more than a pinpoint on my image grow that large in so short of time? I've labeled it as G which is what NED shows it as but added Q? Since the redshift is known to be spectroscopically determined an error on that is unlikely but not impossible if someone crossed a line on some table looking it up. Since I see it slightly larger than a star an error likely is involved here in some way. While I show it as nearly round NED says it is .1 by 0.1 minutes of arc in size. That's a streak not nearly round. That also makes it 370,000 light-years in size. Anyway, I seriously doubt I actually imaged a galaxy at that distance. It is SDSS J081533.03+490143.7 for those wishing to dig further into this mysterious object.

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

Related Designations for NGC2541

NGC2595

This interesting pair of galaxies is located in Cancer a bit over 3 degrees northwest of M44. They are at quite different distances so are unrelated. I'll start with the NGC galaxy as it is the less interesting to me of the two. It was discovered by William Herschel on January 11, 1787 but isn't in either of the first two H400 observing programs.

NGC 2595 is classified as SAB(rs)c at NED and is located a bit over 200 million light-years from us. At that distance, it is about 160,000 light-years across if you count the tip of the extended arm. I found these notes on it at NED:
"Slightly asymmetric spiral pattern, no disturbing object visible" (de Vaucouleurs)

"Bc with compact blue core and blue spiral arms" (CGPG)

`Barred spiral with prominent nucleus and distorted outer regions which extend to 70" = 18 kpc radius. There are no other galaxies nearby' (Sargent)

Yet NED indicates there is a possible disturbing object, ASK 484686.0. It looks as if it is a knot in a rather detached arm segment but NED doesn't indicate it is part of NGC 2595. It may be all that remains from the core of a disturbing galaxy or it may just be a star knot. In any case, it is surprising it didn't make Arp's list with the highly pulled out arm.

UGC 04414 appears to be a barred spiral with a detached ring. It is nearly 350 million light-years distant by redshift and even further away by other distance estimates. It is classed as S0a rather than a barred spiral. That might explain the inner structure, S0 galaxies can be spindles, but what about that ring? The one note at NED on it says: "...lens with high surface brightness." Again that's the inner structure, what about the ring? I wish I knew. I found nothing on it. How does everyone ignore this well-formed ring? Maybe I've missed something. If so, please let me know.

The annotated image includes several galaxy clusters. The distance to most is by photographic redshift while the distance to the Big Cluster Galaxy is usually spectroscopic and more likely the better distance estimate. Photographic redshift is indicated with a "p" after the distance. Also included is a galaxy group of 6 galaxies with a spectroscopic redshift that matches that of a 15 member galaxy cluster's big cluster galaxy. There's nothing seen at the position for the group but its error bar is 15 seconds of arc which does include a couple faint fuzzies but not the big cluster galaxy. Still, I think they are referring to the same object. Besides the normal collection of faint fuzzies, there is one blue quasar in the upper left corner at nearly 11 billion light-years.

The most distant galaxy I caught is SDSS J082745.70+213635.6 at 6.5 billion light-years. At magnitude 22.3 it is barely visible after the losses of JPG compression. Enlarge the image and it should show up.

Also, I caught two asteroids, (139935) 2001 RW133 at magnitude 19.2 and (89594) 2001 XS147 at magnitude 19.5 according to the Minor Planet Center. They are moving nearly parallel to each other in the lower left part of the image.

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

Related Designations for NGC2595

NGC2661

NGC 2661 is a face on spiral galaxy about 1.5 degrees northwest of far the more famous open cluster M67. It's 200 million light-year distance makes it appear rather small from our viewpoint but I measure it at nearly 80,000 light-years across. It is really a larger than average spiral galaxy. It is classified as an Scd: galaxy indicating its arms are spread wide. I hardly see recognizable arms, just a blue disk with one arc at the southern edge. Otherwise, I only see scattered star clouds. The galaxy is rather blue with only a small golden core region. A very old 1973 paper describes it as "Patchy -- Asymmetric broken arms, no disturbing object visible." While I agree with most of that there may be a disturbing object that is visible. I say "may" as I'm not so sure. NED, however, lists a round blue object, seen against it as the galaxy, ASK 610560.0. To me, it is just a star cloud same as many others in the galaxy. I suppose it could be the core of whatever "disturbed" it. NED usually notes these as part of a galaxy, not a separate galaxy but not always. For now, I'm saying it is just a star cloud in the galaxy. NGC 2661 was discovered by William Herschel on March 19, 1784. It isn't in either H400 observing program.

What I didn't realize is I also imaged NGC 2664. This very sparse star group was first logged by John Herschel on March 20, 1830. WEBDA had nothing on it but a position. SIMBAD calls it an open cluster. I was leaning toward it being an asterism. I finally found this paper https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full/2004/46/aa1121/aa1121.html . It was looking for Open Cluster Remnants, 0pen clusters torn apart by tidal forces of our galaxy. This was one candidate of it studied 3. It concluded "All three aggregates clearly emerge from the mean Galactic field, but, regrettably, the close scrutiny of proper motions and radial velocities reveals that we are not facing any physical group. Instead, what we are looking at are just chance alignments of a few bright unrelated stars." A long-winded way of saying it is just an asterism as I first thought it to be. The label in the annotated version is right in the middle of the asterism. Most catalogs would put the two bright blue stars to the upper right of the asterism outside the defined border but since it is just an asterism you can't be wrong either including or excluding them.

Near the top of the image are a pair of spiral galaxies; PGC 024629 and PGC 024631. Like NGC 2661 there's a blue cloud in PGC 024629 that NED lists as a separate galaxy, ASK 61073.5.0. It too appears to be just a star cloud in the galaxy. Both PGC galaxies have similar redshifts and appear distorted. It's quite likely they had a near encounter in the past.

The annotated image shows the normal mix of distant objects. One has me puzzled. It is a point source listed as a galaxy south and a bit east of NGC 2661. At least it is a point source in my image. NED, however, says it isn't a star as it is some 25 million light-years distant by verified spectral redshift. Using their size measurements (barely beyond point source) I get a size of 220 by 360 light-years. Something is wrong here so I just labeled it with a question mark. It is SDSS J084604.26+123417.7 if you wish to solve this puzzle.

There are 4 asteroids in the image, one on the northeast edge of the asterism is very faint. The Minor Planet Center lists its estimated magnitude at 20.7. That may be slightly too faint for a moving target. Some of the distant galaxies in the image are as faint as 22.7.

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

Related Designations for NGC2661

NGC2681

NGC 2681 is a rather odd spiral galaxy in Ursa Major some 40 to 50 million light-years distant. NED gives it the very complex classification as (R')SAB(rs)0/a Sy3 while the NGC project says simply Sa. Notes at NED say it has 3 bars and three stellar points in the core all within one kiloparsec (3260) light-years. That would be 13 to 17 pixels in my image but I see no hint of these in my image. Resolution far too low I suspect. It appears to have undergone a starburst in the core similar to that we currently see in M82 but it is long over in this galaxy as it is dated to a billion years ago. Most likely it is due to the influx of dust and gas from a companion it digested. If all those bars and stellar points near the center are any indication it may have feasted several times. Some papers call it a LINER galaxy while others say a Low Luminosity Active Galactic Nucleus galaxy. NED says Seyfert 3. In any case, the black hole it harbors is still feeding at a steady but low level. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001ApJ...551..197C

There's one apparent companion to NGC 2681 in the image; MCG +09-15-039 has about the same redshift. Unfortunately, NED has nothing else on it.

NGC 2681 is a rather small spiral being only about 40,000 light-years across if the 40 million light-year distance is correct and 50,000 light-years across if the 50 million light-year estimate is correct. But MCG +09-15-039 is tiny at 9300 light-years across at its 35 million light-year distance. Both these would argue they are further away than their redshift indicates. At the top of the image is a nice spiral at a distance of 760,000 light-years. It is nearly 100,000 light-years across at that distance. That would make it similar in size to our own. Ours would look much the same if there's someone in that galaxy looking back at us.

NGC 2681 was discovered by William Herschel on March 17, 1790. It is in the original H400 observing program. My log entry from April 14, 1985 with my 10" f/5 at up to 100 power on a fair but humid night reads; "Large, round, faint galaxy with a starlike nucleus. Arms evenly faint with no brightening until the point side nucleus is reached." I suspect I was only seeing the inner bright arms rather than large faint outer halo as that would be a large brightness difference before reaching the nucleus. Humidity can limit seeing fainter features like these out arms. One I need to revisit visually.

There are a lot of other galaxies in the image. Those with redshift data are labeled. The few with catalog names other than those that just list its coordinates are also listed by their most common catalog designation. There seems to be a scattering of galaxies at about 960,000 light years across the image. If their redshift is photometrically determined a "p" is placed after the distance. These are usually less reliable than spectroscopic determinations. Several galaxy clusters are noted. Usually, the position is the same as the anchoring "Big Cluster Galaxy" so I made only one annotation work for both. If the position of the cluster's center is different then a line is drawn to that point on the image.

Those objects designated as Ultraviolet Excess Sources (UvES) are all quasar candidates. All seem to have only photometric redshifts available.

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

Related Designations for NGC2681

NGC2683

NGC 2683 is a flocculent galaxy with lots of dust, located in Lynx and only about 20 million light-years away. With a major axis of 9.3', its size would be about 54 thousand light-years. Pretty typical and far smaller than the Milky Way galaxy. Seeing wasn't all that great so I failed to pick up much of the flocculent nature of the galaxy. My poor imaging conditions did a number on the color I'm afraid. I retook the color on three different nights never getting good data but for one blue frame. I ended up using the best two of the other colors. Seems for the last year imaging conditions have been less than poor so this will happen quite a bit.

While there is no official release of a Hubble Space Telescope image of this galaxy an amateur, Nikolaus Sulzenauer, used the data at the Hubble Legacy site to create a great image of this galaxy. Its flocculent nature is very obvious in the image as is the huge halo of stars obscuring the far side of the galaxy. Click on the image for a full-size view.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101011.html

It was discovered by William Herschel on February 5, 1788. It is in the original H400 observing program. My notes from that on April 14, 1985 on a humid night limited me with my 10" f/5 at up to 100x reads; "Edge on galaxy. Gradually brightening toward the center. No nucleus seen. No dark dust lane seen to it is still a very pretty galaxy and should be interesting in any telescope of 6" or larger." It appears I didn't notice the dust on the northwest side of the galaxy. Maybe this was due to limitations due to the humidity dimming the galaxy.

AGC 180805 is the galaxy off its southeast end. At over 800 million light-years it is a very large spiral. NED puts its major axis at 0.81' which works out to be about 194 thousand light-years for its diameter. That is one huge spiral! Probably in the top 0.1% for size (only an estimate so don't quote me on this).

For the annotated image I included a catalog reference for all closer than 1 billion light-years though in many cases this consists only of its j2000 coordinates.

Several galaxy clusters are in the image. All but one has a Bright Cluster Galaxy at its center though oddly its distance never was the same as that listed for the cluster. The difference was well within the error bar of such measurement. Still, I'd think some agreement as to which is the one to use would be reached.

WHL J085318.3+332739 is east of NGC 2683 and only marked as G/GC. It is listed as having only six members at 4.1 or 4.2 billion light-years. No size was given nor was I able to identify any other members of the cluster but for the BCG anchoring it.

GC MaxBCG J133.33978+33.27499 is to the southeast of NGC 2683 at a distance of 1.6 or 1.7 billion light-years. Being closer its BCG is far larger. It is listed as containing 11 members, again with no size. Several other galaxies are noted in the area with a distance of about 1.6 billion light-years. I assume they are members of the group. Being close it would spread out more.

The other two clusters likely refer to the same group. They are in the upper right corner of the image. ZwCl 0848.5+3341 has nothing to mark its center. I've drawn a line to about its center position. I may be off a few pixels. It is listed as having 46 members in a circle 7 minutes in diameter. Its distance is listed a5 4.1 billion light years. While I see faint fuzzies all around this position far more are seen to the north. This brings us to the last cluster.

WHL J085139.0+333112 is located just above and a bit east of the Zwicky cluster. It is listed with 58 members but no diameter. Its distance is listed at 4.0 or 4.2 billion light-years. Neatly boxing in the 4.1 billion light-year value for the Zwicky cluster. It appears to have to BCG but only the southern one has that distinction but the northern one has the coordinates of the cluster (within 1" of arc). I'm confused.

There is one asteroid in the image. It is noted on the annotated image southeast of NGC 2683. The minor planet center lists its estimated magnitude at 19.6 which seems reasonable.

Seeing was poor when this was taken. Lots of detail is fuzzy because of the poor seeing. For this reason, I've not included an enlarged image. I need to reshoot this one under better seeing conditions.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10 RG=2x10x3 B=1x10x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2683

NGC2684

NGC 2684 is a rather non-symmetrical galaxy by the front feet of Ursa Major. Redshift puts it about 140 million light-years distant. It lies among a lot of other galaxies most of which belong to a galaxy cluster much further away. According to The Sky, it is known as the "Pancake Galaxy". Apparently, because it is thought to be extremely flat though it isn't listed in any flat galaxy catalogs and seen face on I don't know how you verify this. It was discovered by William Herschel on March 9, 1788. But isn't in either Herschel 400 list. While the outline of the galaxy is a rather nice oval its brightness falls off rapidly on the southeastern side making it look very lopsided. In fact, the blue star clouds in the arms are missing from this faded part of the galaxy further making it appear dim and lopsided. NED classifies it as S? Usually, that means there's a question whether it is a spiral or not but this is obviously one, I'd say it has a pseudo ring as well. That leaves me wondering what the question is in this case. The NGC project says it is S pec. That I can agree with. Maybe NED is trying to decide if it is peculiar or not. I just don't know.

There are two other NGC galaxies in the image that are double galaxies, NGC 2686 and NGC 2687. They were discovered by R. J. Mitchell on March 11m 1858. Based on redshift the two that comprise NGC 2686 are at quite different distances, 710 million light-years for the large, brighter western member and 320 million light-years for the smaller and fainter eastern galaxy. Things get even more confusing at NED which identifies the western member as the bright cluster galaxy for a galaxy cluster of 22 galaxies which it puts at 1.62 billion light-years. Over twice as far away. The larger distance is the result of a photographic redshift estimate. These usually are fairly good. Maybe not in this case. More confusing my The Sky names the western member as the "Spindle" galaxy. It doesn't look at all like a spindle to me. NED classifies it as E while the NGC Project says C. Now that confuses me. C usually means a compact galaxy. I've not seen that applied to large elliptical galaxies before. Is that a typo?

NGC 2687 is the pair to the northeast. The eastern member is the larger and is also listed as a bright cluster galaxy, I assume in the same cluster as its redshift is similar to that of the eastern member of NGC 2686 at a redshift distance of 670 million light-years. It is listed as S0^ at NED and S at the NGC project Its western companion is rather spindle-like (did The Sky put the label on the wrong galaxy?) but NED had no distance estimate for it. So is it a true companion or not? It shows no indication of interaction so if it is they are a line of sight pair not close enough for long enough for an interaction to be seen.

The next NGC galaxy in the image is NGC 2688 to the southeast of the others. It appears to be a member of the group at about 700 million light-years. NED calls it an Sb galaxy while the NGC project says S0. That's a major disagreement. Looks like Sa to my eye. The last NGC galaxy is NGC 2689. NED doesn't classify it but Seligman says S0. It too appears part of the galaxy group. These were also discovered by R. J. Mitchell on the same night as when he found 2686 and 2687. NED says it and the others were found by the Earl of Rosse. He did take credit for the discovery but it was made by his assistant R. J. Mitchel. The good Earl took credit for a lot of work done by his assistants. He did make the discovery possible so gets that credit but I prefer to go with the assistant that actually found it.

Several other apparent galaxy clusters can be seen in the image though I find little on them. Near the top of the image is a rather white F5 star. It has lots of galaxies around it. One is listed as the position of a 9 member galaxy cluster at 2.17 billion light-years, again using photographic redshift, Again confusion sets in as below it NED lists a bright cluster galaxy at a distance of 1.51 billion light-years. Same cluster or a different one? Then below this star and to its right are a bunch of very faint and likely very distant galaxies. Due to cloud issues, I didn't get enough color data to color them so they come through white. NED lists some of them but none with distance data nor any indication of a cluster they may belong to.

The image has a few quasar candidates, all with photographic redshift measurements that NED labels as Ultraviolet Excess Objects. NED indicates these are likely quasars but is apparently awaiting actual spectroscopic data before making this official. Sometimes photographic redshift can be misleading so this is a good idea.

One rather strange galaxy I found nothing on is SDSS J085520.49+490712.4 to the east of NGC 2688. It has two very elongated plumes or arms. The western one short and bright and the eastern one long and faint. Likely this is due to an interaction with another galaxy. Seeing none around that are disturbed it may be a merger situation. With nothing on it, this is purely a guess.

There are two asteroids in the image. One quite bright and obvious to the northwest of NGC 2684, the other much fainter to the southwest. Normally the color frames are seen against dark sky and barely show if they show at all. In this case, they are big and bright for the bright asteroid. This is due to the horrid sky conditions this was taken under. My sky was very cloudy which gave the asteroids a bright background to color. When I dimmed that to my usual level I left it bright for the color portion of the asteroid trail. In this case, I started with blue but conditions got so bad I stopped taking data for a bit. Then did a meridian flip and decided things were good enough for luminance so did that then just continued on with red and green. Clouds then shut me down. The trail of the 20th magnitude asteroid is more like that of one at 21.5 magnitude showing I was losing about 1.5 magnitudes to the sky this night. The bright asteroid passed right over a star during the last of the blue frame. this resulted in half the star being blue and half its true white color. I changed it back to white so the blue trail appears a bit shorter than the other colors. A blue and white star looked odd so it had to go.

The clouds made for horrid glare circles around the stars, even fainter ones had large halos. I only sort of dealt with them so don't look very closely at the stars. They have the remains of my heavy-handed attempt to control these halos which were different sizes for each color as the cloud conditions changed.

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

Related Designations for NGC2684

NGC2715

NGC 2715 could have made Arp's atlas of peculiar galaxies under the classification of one heavy arm. It is likely related to Arp 225 located about 40 arc minutes to the west-northwest. They both have similar redshifts. Distant interaction in the past with Arp 225 may have created the pulled out heavy arm. NGC 2715 is also unusual in that its arm segments begin right at the core rather than coming off of two main arms. NGC 2715 is located in Camelopardalis west of the tail end of Draco. It was discovered by Alphonse Borrelly sometime in 1871. He was a French astronomer mainly interested in finding comets and asteroids but did find 5 new NGC objects, including this one.

The field contains two Abell galaxy clusters, Abell 719 and Abel 738. Abell 719 is richness class II which means it has 80 to 129 galaxies in a particular limited magnitude range. Morphology III means it has no large galaxy and is without much if any condensation. It is listed as 20 minutes across which means it overlaps the other Abell cluster on the east side of the image, Abell 738. It too is richness class II but is intermediate between morphology group II and III which means it has some larger elliptical galaxies but little condensation except right near these larger galaxies. Its diameter is even larger at 24 minutes. There is a third galaxy cluster in the image NSC J091248+780302. Actually, it is listed as a candidate cluster but with a redshift virtually the same as Abell 0738 and no size I have to think these two refer to the same cluster. Likely the latter refers to the denser center region of Abell 738.

This far north NED has little else on the field. Most of the "major" galaxies in the image aren't even listed at NED and those that are rarely had redshift data. Those that did were just members of the Abell clusters with similar distances. Also, their positions were rather vague making it difficult to tell which of two galaxies were being referred to. I didn't list them in the annotated image. Thus those galaxies I did list were lone galaxies easily identifiable with vague coordinates. The exception was PGC 213564 which was accurately listed in The Sky.

The blue color channel was severely damaged by clouds. Retakes were even worse. I suspect the blue data but am posting this until I can get better data.

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

Related Designations for NGC2715