NGC2841

NGC 2841 is a flocculent galaxy in Ursa Major that reminds me of M63 with its tufts of star clouds rather than defined arms. The distance to this one is rather vague. I've seen estimates from 45 to 80 million light years. Redshift and Cepheid measurements favor the shorter estimate while Tulley-Fisher measurements and a type 1a supernova estimate put it further away. Considering large earth-based scopes have resolved a few stars in it I'd favor the shorter estimates. Hubble easily resolves it into stars. Though there's no published Hubble image, you can see some good examples at the Hubble Legacy Archive.

NED classes it an SA(r)b:;LINER Sy1 indicating it has a very active nucleus. The NGC project takes the simple route with Sb I as its classification. It was discovered by William Herschel on March 9, 1788. It is in the original H400 program. My entry from April 15, 1985 with my 10" f/5 on a humid night limiting how faint I could see using up to 100x reads; "Large, bright, apparently nearly face on spiral galaxy only slightly elongated but does stretch over to a nearby field star. A starlike nucleus with a beautiful halo about it." I'm confused. My description would imply it is rather round rather than elongated but I was seeing it at least to the star near the northwest end of the galaxy as that has to be the one I mention. That would imply I did see it elongated. Makes me wish I could go back in time and ask myself what I was thinking when I wrote this.

While the Arp Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies has been my main target of late I'm also working on the objects in the Astronomical League's Herschel 400 list from the early 80's. This was one of the nicer ones on that list. One that deserves more attention than most astrophotographers give it.

The eastern (left) side appears to be the side closest to us. The flocculent nature of the west side is somewhat hidden by what appears to be a gauze of halo stars. Though after a pass through the high pass filter this difference was greatly reduced.

There are a lot of background galaxies so I prepared an annotated version. One object is considered a quasar in some catalogs and a just a galaxy with a strong AGN by another. Looking at the PSF in my image it is that of an extended object rather than a point source so it appears I'm picking up some of the galaxy the quasar is in. Not all that common but considering it is only about 2.44 billion light-years distant not surprising. It is labeled as Q/G in the annotated image since more catalogs say quasar than galaxy.

The brightest background galaxy in the image is CGCG 265-009. I found no attempt to classify this odd blue galaxy. It looks like a two-armed barred spiral with lots of disconnected star clouds in the disk unrelated to the arms. It would seem to fit somewhere in Arp's Atlas of peculiar galaxies.

The Sloan image of NGC 2841 is at:
http://astronomerica.awardspace.com/SDSS-19/NGC2841.php
It doesn't show the flocculent nature very well, probably because of its heavy weighting toward IR light. The dark line is the gap between the CCDs that make up its imaging array.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x10', RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2841

NGC2859

NGC 2859 is a double ring galaxy in southwest Leo Minor about 85 to 90 million light-years distant. The core is elongated rather east-west while the bar is rotated about 80 degrees to a north-south alignment. The bar is very weak. The ends at the first ring, however, are rather brightened. Except for this very weak bar the first ring is not really connected to the core. The outer ring appears even less connected to the rest of the galaxy. There is a hint the bar may continue as a fuzzy area to the outer ring. It may be due to foreshortening rather than a real connection. I found nothing in the literature explaining this unusual arrangement. The outer ring shows hints of spiral structure. M94 has a similar detached ring with some spiral structure in the ring. Others would include Hoag's Object But these have only one ring and are not barred spirals. They have much redder cores as well. Are they similar in origin to NGC 2859?

NED classes it as (R)SB(r)0+ while the NGC project says simple SB0. I think this is one of the fuzziest, most ill-defined galaxy I've ever imaged. The two to its north, that are part of its group, seem very fuzzy as well. Is this trying to tell us something? Wish I knew. NGC 2859 was discovered by William Herschel on March 28, 1786. It is in the original H400 program. My log entry from April 15, 1985 with my 10" f/5 on a humidity compromised night using up to 120x reads; "Interesting, slightly elongated galaxy. Faint but mottled halo around a brighter center with a starlike nucleus. Requires averted vision to see the mottling." I can't see the mottling in my image nor any I found online. This may tell more about how my eye-brain was functioning than the galaxy.

The annotated image, as usual, shows the distance to all objects in my image for which NED has redshift data. UGC 05004 is classed as IM and along with another to its west appears to be part of the same group as NGC 2859. A pair of galaxies in the upper right quadrant share a common redshift that put them just under a billion light-years away. Their disks overlap. Hard to tell if they are really interacting or just a line of sight pair. They certainly are part of the same galaxy group.

One mystery is the quasar to the east of UGC 05004, NGC U2859 U02. The quasar is listed as 19th magnitude which is brighter than some others easily seen in my image. Seeing nothing at the location I checked the Sloan image which goes deeper than mine. Again, no sign of the quasar. Its position is uncertain with an error bar of 2.5" which is 5 times greater than most objects in the image. But nothing is seen in a 10" circle in the Sloan image. Also, the object isn't listed in the Sloan data at NED. I don't know if it doesn't exist or the coordinates are wrong. I marked the position but don't expect to see anything there above my noise level.

Two 7th magnitude K0 stars tried hard to mess up my image. One by being close to NGC 2859 and another I thought I had far enough off the bottom of the image but obviously, that wasn't the case. I could have cloned out the nasty glare but decided against it. My cloning skills tend to be rather poor and obvious.

Asteroid is (150917) 2001 TD44 at an estimated magnitude of 19.7

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

Related Designations for NGC2859

NGC2876

NGC 2876 and its companions are located in Hydra about 2 degrees north of Alphard (Alpha Hydrae). This put it right in the geostationary satellite belt as seen from my latitude. What a pain. I had dozens of satellites to remove from these images, many right atop each other such that auto rejection software was worthless. Also with only 2 color frames per color frame it wouldn't work in any case. This means it is rather low in my sky where seeing isn't all that great nor is transparency. I knew it had a plume to the west but the other plumes took me by surprise, especially the long one to the east. The galaxy is about 290 million light-years distant. That means from the end of the eastern plume straight across to the end of the western plume is over a half million light-years while the bright inner core spans only 38,000 light-years. It has three companions at virtually the same redshift. IC 2471 also has plumes though my exposure time was too short to pick them up very well. I suspect an interaction between the two occurred sometime in the past. Both are classified as being peculiar. Though I suspect the long eastern plume of NGC 2876 may trace the path of a galaxy it cannibalized.

With MCG-01-24-01 to the north, NGC 2876 and IC 2471 form a triple galaxy cataloged as LDCE 0640. Why LEDA 1029934 to the west doesn't make a quadruple I don't know but its redshift is very slightly less than the other three. Apparently that was sufficient to throw it out of the group. It is by far the smallest of the group at 35,000 light-years. But then MCG -01-24-014 a bit removed in angular distance has virtually the same redshift as the first three and LEDA 154000. Including these makes a sextuple galaxy group but only the tightest three qualified apparently more due to angular distance than anything.

David Malin (who else?) has taken a very deep image of the plumes involved. See them at: http://ftp.aao.gov.au/images/deep_html/n2876_d.html

I find very little on these galaxies. One source I found claims NGC 2876 harbors a mid size black hole but I was unable to find any paper supporting this and the webpage gave no references. NGC 2876 was discovered by Édouard Stephan on March 5, 1880 while IC 2471 was found by Guillaume Bigourdan on March 5, 1899.

The very red star to the southwest of NGC 2876 and northwest of IC 2471 is a Mira class variable star, RZ Hya. Classed as a M5e star (the e means it has emission lines) its red magnitude is 5 magnitudes brighter than its blue according to SIMBAD. Measured on my frames it is some 6 magnitudes brighter in red than blue light and somewhat dimmer than its average value. That may account for how red it is. SIMBAD lists its IR brightness a 4.82 in J band and 3.53 in K so it is emitting most of its light in the infra red part of the spectrum. It's listed B magnitude is 16! Now that's a red star.

While there are other galaxies in the field that may or may not be part of this group I found no redshift data for any of them so didn't include them on the annotated image. I'd not have prepared one except I picked up two faint asteroids. The minor planet center lists them at 20.1 and 20.3 magnitude. I found something very odd about the 20.3 magnitude one. While my seeing for the 20.1 magnitude asteroid allowed it to show as a nice fine trace, tighter than I usually get on an asteroid of this brightness the 20.3 magnitude asteroid is very fuzzy yet the two are only separated by 85 seconds of arc. Both were taken on the same image frames. So why is one fuzzy and one sharp? I know a very few asteroids have been reported to show comet like traits, I don't find (366447) 2001 YU51 to be one of them. This was taken in October so too late to go back and take another look at it. It is a mystery. My processing was identical for the two regions so that's not it. The raw FITs show the same issue.

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

Related Designations for NGC2876

NGC2884

NGC 2884 and 2889 are a considered a galaxy pair in Hydra. They apparently are only an optical pair as NGC 2884 has a redshift based distance of 250 million light-years while NGC 2889 is only 170,000 light-years distant. While they appear somewhat the same size when the distance difference is taken into account you find NGC 2884 is much larger at nearly 160,000 light-years in diameter making it a very large spiral while NGC 2889 is only about 95,000 light-years across, a bit smaller than our galaxy

NGC 2889 attracted my interest as it fits Arp's category for galaxies with one heavy arm. It does so to my eye better than some he did include. It is classed as SAB(rs)c at NED. The NGC Project say Sb+. So the NGC project says it doesn't have a bar though to my eye it has a short one running nearly east-west, a bit tipped to the north at the west end. Its spiral structure is only slightly blue indicating it has few if any really recent star formation going on in it. It was discovered by William Herschel on March 19, 1786 and is in the second Herschel 400 object list.

NGC 2884 is a rather normal looking spiral seen rather edge on that's unusually large as already mentioned. Its core region is quite red but the outer arms quite blue so there's quite an age difference in the stars in this galaxy compared to the rather blah coloration of NGC 2889. It is classed as S0/a? by NED and Sa by the NGC project. While Herschel found 2889 he somehow missed NGC 2884 which wasn't discovered until 79 years later by Heinrich d'Arrest.

This part of the sky is poorly studied for galaxies. Only these two galaxies had distance data and most of the others you see in my image aren't even mentioned at NED as galaxies. The edge on at the bottom edge left of center is only listed as an Ultraviolet Source even though it is obviously a galaxy. Due to the dearth of information, I didn't prepare an annotated image.

As was common this spring skies were awful which was compounded by an aurora brightening the sky and playing havoc with color balance. Seeing the field was being washed out by skies over 10 times brighter than normal I started to take a second round the next night. However, conditions quickly went even sourer and only one luminance frame was obtained before the observatory shut itself down. I decided to go with what I had even though with the very bright sky it is much noisier than I'd normally allow. But then that's the norm for this spring it seems.

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

Related Designations for NGC2884

NGC2903

NGC 2903 is found just off the nose of the Leo the Lion and is big and bright enough that it should have made Messier's list but for some reason didn't. Frost was more of a problem on this one and the cold also caused the brighter stars to "bloom" to the right making them lopsided. This is a problem I'll address when working on the heaters. It too only shows up when the camera is run at very cold temperatures. Edit: The front of the optical window can frost on very cold nights. I now combat that with an extra heater on the window and desiccant in the telescope itself so it isn't a problem anymore but was when this early image was taken.) The galaxy is short red and some green due to the frost problem thus is way too blue. (Edit: easy to deal with but I didn't have the skills and tools needed when this was processed. On the bottom edge of the galaxy just left of center is a knot of stars that at one time were thought to be a separate galaxy. Thus it was given its own NGC number as NGC 2905. You might wonder why it isn't 2904. The NGC catalog is ordered by Right Ascension (similar to longitude on the earth) at the time the catalog was first created. The wobble of the earth's axis called precession has changed the RA order of the galaxies since then but they kept their original order. It turns out 2904 is a galaxy too far south for me to image (though it is above my horizon) in the constellation of Antlia -- the air pump. Bet you non-astronomers never knew there was an air pump in the sky!

NGC 2903 was discovered by William Herschel on November 16, 1784. It is in the original H400 observing program. My entry from April 15, 1985, on a humidity limited night using my 10" f/5 at up to 120x reads; "An old favorite. Large tilted spiral galaxy with a bright nucleus. Arms to the northeast seem brighter and more extended than those to the southwest of the nucleus." I doubt, due to the humidity, I was not seeing the fainter arms. They seem rather similar but the inner brighter region does appear to fit my visual description.

You can read a bit more about this galaxy and see a Hubble shot of the center of it at:
http://www.seds.org/messier/xtra/ngc/n2903.html

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x5', RG=3x5' B=3x7' (Edit: This mistake boosted blue even more something I couldn't compensate for in my ignorance at the time,), STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2903

NGC2929

WBL 227 is a group of spiral galaxies about 350 million light-years distant in Ursa Major, less than two degrees from the far more famous M51 in Canes Venatici. Officially there are 4 galaxies, NGC 2929, NGC 2930, NGC 2931 and CGCG 122-039. But CGCG 122-039 is two spiral galaxies MCG +04-23-021 and MCG +04-23-22. Here we have a case of 3 plus 1 equals 5.

The three NGC galaxies were all discovered by William Herschel but not on the same night. He tended to leave the scope at a set declination and pick up what the earth's rotation brought into view. Thus he found NGC 2929 and 2230 on November 30, 1834 but didn't sweep up NGC 2231 further north until nearly a month later on December 23, 1834. All are too faint for either H400 list.

NGC 2929 is listed at NED as having a companion on its long drawn out arm that I've marked on the annotated image. It looks like just another knot in the arm to me. I rather doubt it is a real separate galaxy. I've noted it in the annotated image. The odd drawn out arm would fit several of Arp's categories, especially that for spiral galaxies with a heavy arm. NED lists it as S?. I think they mean it is a spiral, they just can't say if it is Sa, Sb, Sc or Sd so leave that letter as a question mark. The NGC Project just says S. While it looks rather small that's due to its distance of 350 million light-years. It really is some 150,000 light-years across.

NGC 2930 is really messed up but has some hint of spiral structure. I'm surprised it isn't listed as Sm. Maybe that is why it too gets a question mark at both NED and the NGC Project. It is some 70,000 light-years in diameter.

NGC 2931 at first glance appears to be a spiral but its arms aren't very "normal" looking to me. NED didn't even try to classify it. However, the NGC Project gives it an S? While it appears larger than 2930 I measure its size as being about the same, 70,000 light years. It's just that it is rounder so covers more area but actually is about the same diameter.

All three NGC galaxies were discovered by Heinrich d'Arrest on February 21, 1863.

The pair of galaxies to the east, CGCG 122-039, appear to be somewhat disorganized spirals as well though I found no one willing to try and classify them. Their redshift puts them slightly further away though I suspect this is more due to their motion in the group than a real distance difference. MCG +04-23-021 is about 65,000 light-years in size while its companion to the east is almost 80,000 light-years across. Its longer drawn out form that makes it appear smaller due to the viewing angle seeing it more edge on.

Since all of them appear disturbed it makes me wonder if they all didn't interact in some way in the past resulting in their motley appearance as we see them some 350 million years ago.

The annotated image shows other galaxies such as LEDA 4207490, 4559638 and maybe 1683427, 1683902 and 1685311 are likely smaller members of the group, though they may form a separate group. Most everything else in the image is well over a billion light-years away.

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

Related Designations for NGC2929

NGC2943

NGC 2943 anchors the WBL 229 galaxy group about 400 million light-years distant in western Leo. While the group is listed at NED as having only 4 members there are many galaxies at about the same redshift as NGC 2943 as shown in the annotated image. The galaxy is a huge elliptical. I can trace it out to about 330 arc seconds on the original FITS stack. At 390 million light-years that is over 600,000 light-years in diameter. It dwarfs more normal sized galaxies in the group and those like NGC 2933 at half that distance. The field contains 4 NGC galaxies at about 400 million light-years, NGC 2934, 2941, 2943 and 2946. With NGC 2933 and its companion LEDA 4207399 at half that distance.

All NGC galaxies were discovered by Albert Marth on April 1, 1865 except for NGC 2934 which he found on April 2, 1865.

I've noted all galaxies with redshift data in NED. If it is known only by its coordinates I use G for galaxy or Q for quasar rather than a catalog name. One is a quasar candidate noted as QC. One nearby object was listed as both a quasar and galaxy so it carries both labels. A small galaxy group and a galaxy cluster are noted at the location of the anchoring bright cluster galaxy. A "p" by the look back time means it is photographic rather than spectroscopic.

Conditions were poor the nights this was taken. I had to combine two nights worth of data to get enough data but ended up with a higher noise level than I normally get with half that number. One night was interrupted by clouds. Both nights had lots of asteroids in the image. In one the trails show the break due to clouds so you can tell which night a particular asteroid was in the frame. The first night had 6 and the second 8 though one of the 8 was very faint and is entirely within NGC 2946 and didn't survive processing so isn't noted. While I've noted the estimated magnitudes given by the Minor Planet Data Center they seem rather erratic. Some asteroids are very red. My sensor is poor for red which might explain the inconsistency. The second brightest asteroid has the common name of Allilandstrom which is named for Allison (Alli) Landstrom. The naming citation reads: "Allison Landstrom (b. 1986) was awarded second place in the 2004 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for her medicine and health project. She attends the Southridge High School, Beaverton, Oregon, U.S.A." It was discovered by LINEAR on Nov. 1, 2000. http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/programs/linear.html

If you are wondering about the double star to the northeast of NGC 2943 that has fuzz around it, so was I. It really is a double star. The fuzz is due to MCG +03-25-012, a background galaxy. Looking at the Sloan image the part to the lower right of the double star looks normal but then above the double star is more fuzz that if part of that galaxy is hard to explain. Something odd may be going on here but without turning off those two stars I can't tell what it might be. NED has no distance data on it so I didn't include it in the annotation.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=8x10' RGB=4x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC2943

NGC2950

NGC 2950 as a (R)SB(r)0^0 galaxy just below the neck of Ursa Major about 67 million light-years away. I measure its size at about 67,000 light-years 1000 times less than its distance. Others, apparently not seeing its outer halo out as far I do put it at 50,000 light-years across. It is considered a double-barred galaxy. One paper, http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/381080/pdf indicates the bars have a different pattern speeds. It was discovered by William Herschel on March 19, 1790.

It is in the original H400 program. Being rather blah its being in the program was the only reason it went on my to-do list. My notes from April 15, 1985 on a humid night while celebrating the end of tax season using my 10" f/5 at up to 150 power reads: "Very small, faint, round galaxy. It seems to have a starlike nucleus surrounded by a bright ring located half way to the edge of its halo. Interesting but hard to see due to its small size and need for averted vision." I suspect that the humidity was worse than I realized that night. Apparently, I was only seeing the inner parts of it. I never looked at it again until taking this image and then I only looked at it with the camera.

I found only a very few color images of this galaxy and no two were similar in color. Even two Sloan images varied quite a bit. Otherwise, I found few images of this one and not even one at Astrobin where many imagers post their pictures (not me). Considering it's dual bars aren't seen except in IR light and it's rather blah otherwise the lack of images doesn't surprise me.

It is listed at NED as being part of the NGC 2950 group, a group of 4 galaxies. NED doesn't say what the other three are. I assume PGC 027788 at almost the same redshift is one of the three. The others must be outside my image. I didn't go looking for them. Some quasars are classed as HiBAL. This stands for High ionization Broad Absorption Line. There are also LoBAL quasars with Low ionization. Also just BAL. Though only those classed as HiBAL quasars were in this image. I suspect most of the Candidate Quasars will turn out to actually be quasars but I left their designation as a candidate to be conservative. If quasars, there's a surprising number of them in the image. Arp held on to his belief quasars weren't distant objects but were ejected from active galaxies. Their redshift was due to something other than the expansion of the universe. NGC 2950 doesn't appear to be very active, though the double bar may indicate a merger long ago. I wish I could ask Arp how this one fits with his ideas.

Due to dawn fast approaching I took only 1 green frame saving it for last. I don't think that hurt the color at all. If it were a more interesting galaxy I'd put it on the reshoot list but for now, I have more to take than I have half a chance to ever catch. There's a whole universe of things out there to the image! With only 1600 or so taken, I have a long way to go.

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

Related Designations for NGC2950

NGC2968

Leo's other triplet?

This group of three NGC galaxies is sometimes known as the NGC 2964 galaxy group. Why it is named for one on the end rather the middle one I don't know other than it is the brightest of the three. It's about as far from the more famous Leo Triplet as you can get being located in the northwestern corner above Leo's head.

NGC 2968, in the middle, is a very strange galaxy. Redshift puts it about 84 million light-years distant. Tully Fisher estimates are all over the board ranging from 22 to 84 million light-years. The greatest agreeing with the redshift. It was discovered by William Herschel on December 7, 1785 though isn't in either of the Herschel 400 lists for some reason. NED classifies it as I0 which I've not heard of before. Probably the irregular equivalent of an S0 galaxy. The NGC Project just says irregular. It is strange with a bright core with a very weird dust lane that snakes all over the map and an outer faint region. It has two NGC companions NGC 2970 and NGC 2964. Some papers consider it not interacting with either. Some say it is interacting with one or the other. One cites the obvious plume to the north as proving it is interacting with NGC 2970 since it blew a supernova in the plume in 1970. How that proves it I don't know. To me, the strange shape and its odd dust lane and plume seem possibly due to a merger with the plume showing the path of the digested companion. The dust lane may have come mostly if not entirely from the digested hapless galaxy. Neither of the companions seem the least bit disturbed which, well, disturbs me. If it were interacting with either I'd expect one or both to show some sign of it. I found no papers considering this possibility, however. There is an SDSS galaxy seen against or through the disk of NGC 2968. If it were interacting with either I'd expect one or both to show some sign of it. I found no distance data on it. Is it far beyond as it appears or somehow connected to NGC 2968. Again, I found nothing here. I lean toward it just being in the same line of sight and in the far distance. The diameter of NGC 2968 is about 84,000 light-years ignoring the plume. The plume is a minimum of 142,000 light-years long making the galaxy 226,000 light-years plume to end.

NGC 2964, below NGC 2968, is a Herschel 400 object (original list) being discovered by William Herschel on the same night as NGC 2968. That's the reason I had this area on my to-do list. But one look at the focus frame convinced me to center on NGC 2968 instead as even in the 10 second frame to check centering I saw the plume beyond NGC 2970 showing faintly. I didn't know what it was until I did a quick internet check. NGC 2964 is classed as a barred spiral by NED but as an ordinary Sbc spiral by the NGC project. I think from the way the arms come off a ways from the core I see a faint hint of a bar leading to their beginning points. It too seems to have an inner bright region, spiral in this case and a fainter ill-defined disk beyond. My notes on it from April 15, 1985 reads: "Faint triangular puff of a galaxy gradually brighter toward the middle. Forms a nice high power pair with NGC 2968." So I saw no detail in it and can't explain the triangular shape I saw. I have another mystery. I was a practicing tax CPA in 1985 so how the heck did I have time to go observing on the night of April 15! I never remember being free as I was usually frantically sending in extensions for clients who failed to get me the needed data for their returns. Amazing I got out that night. The time was 9:28 p.m. NGC 2964 is about 67,000 light-years in diameter assuming its redshift distance.

As I mentioned some papers say it is interacting with NGC 2968 but I seriously doubt that as its distance is a good 10 million light-years closer at 70 to 73 million light-years. Here the Tully Fisher estimates are all centered closely around the 70 million light-year figure.

NGC 2970 is the other galaxy sometimes considered as interacting with NGC 2968 and causing its plume. As mentioned that is possible but I prefer a merger as the plume reminds me of a similarly shaped plume involving the known merger galaxy Arp 189, the Umbrella Galaxy http://www.spacebanter.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=4330&stc=1. NGC 2970 was discovered by John Herschel on March 6, 1828. Its distance both by redshift and Tully Fisher measurements is 87 million light-years. It is classed as E1 by NED and the NGC Project. It is also known as MRK 0405. Markarian galaxies are usually much bluer. This one is virtually white so bluer than most elliptical galaxies, just not as blue as most Markarian galaxies. To me, it shows no sign of interacting with any other galaxy. It is only 25,000 light-years across at its redshift distance. Nearby is ASK 490208 at a redshift distance of 77 million light-years. If right the two aren't really related.

To the west of NGC 2968 is ASK 491577.0 and about 2 billion light-years. It seems quite distorted. Just above it is a near starlike galaxy with no redshift data. Are they interacting? Wish I knew.

Below NGC 2964 as the galaxy ASK 491578 classed as a dwarf E6 galaxy about 310 million light-years distant. That would make it some 46,600 light-years across. To me, that's rather big to be considered a dwarf galaxy.

In the northwest corner is the very blue ASK 490234 simply classed as "Spiral" by NED. It is so blue even the core appears blue. It also looks a bit warped. Though that could be due to a blue field star superimposed over it creating the illusion of a double core. At 220 million light years it is a rather small galaxy at 33,000 light-years in diameter yet it isn't a classified as a dwarf. I'm confused.

The annotated image lists all galaxies with a redshift value and a couple of interest, to me, that didn't.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount MENGC2968-NGC2964-NGC2970

Related Designations for NGC2968

NGC2976

NGC 2976 is a member of the M81 group. This group all seem to have had interactions in the recent past that has caused a period of starburst activity. It is still going on in M82. Many other members have obviously had such a period not long ago. We now see them as very blue galaxies due to all the stars that formed in them. IC 2574 and NGC 4236 are examples of others in this group. NGC 2976 though is smaller than the other two and its spiral structure so disrupted it is hard to tell how to classify it. Most classify it as a peculiar spiral but the classification beyond that is all over the board with no agreement that I can find. Looking through papers on it I find all of the following, SAc peculiar, Sc peculiar, SdIII-IV, S peculiar (they gave up it appears) and a few others that also indicate they really don't have a clue. Unlike most spirals, there is no real core to this galaxy. Just an orange spot of older stars marks the core region. No central bulge is seen. It contains many HII regions, over 70 have been cataloged. Seeing wasn't good enough for me to resolve this, however. Adding some H-alpha data would help but that isn't possible this year.

NGC 2903 was discovered by William Herschel on November 8, 1801. It is in the original H400 program. My short entry from April 27, 1984 with my 10" f/5 on an excellent night at up to 150x reads; "Hint of
a dust lane though none is shown in Burnham's photo. Irregular detail, fairly bright. A member of the M81 group." I don't know what I saw I took as a "hint of a dust lane" as my image shows nothing I'd have seen visually.

This image was taken in severe moonlight. Seems it is clear this winter only when the moon is shining brightly off the frozen lake making for horrible conditions. There is a large featureless halo of stars about this galaxy but I can only hint at it through all the moonlight. It is now too far west and in my tree line so I can't go back and retry it until next winter. Edit: Years later it still hasn't been retaken.

Just to the east (left) of it is GALEX 2485954146456307057. This is a catalog of excess ultraviolet objects cataloged by the GALEX satellite which is currently the main ultraviolet observatory orbiting the earth. (Edit: It has reentered our atmosphere and burned up since I wrote this.) Again, moonlight foiled my attempt to image this guy. It is exceedingly blue and the bright moon makes the sky exceedingly blue at night like the sun does by day. This drowns out faint blue objects. In killing the blue sky from the moonlight I also ended up killing the blue color of this object. It barely showed up in my red data and was faint in green. Very odd for a galaxy. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a thing on it other than the listing in the catalog. It too, must be a starburst galaxy to have such an excess of ultraviolet light. It seems to have a faint tidal arm on the side between it and NGC 2976. Though I assume it is a very distant galaxy the lack of information on it makes it impossible to know for certain. I have no redshift data to go by.

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

Related Designations for NGC2976