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Galaxy hunting in Camelopardalis

mdstuart

By mdstuart
in Observing - Deep Sky

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mdstuart

mdstuart

Posted
Posted

Lovely clear night ...no moon...time to carry on the galaxy hunt

so went for taki pages 9 & 10 and looked for unseen galaxies.

Started with ngc2366. It turned out I made the same mistake as w hershall and saw the star forming region rather than the galaxy itself!

Anyway managed to spot four more new little galaxies.

Ngc 2258 which is just to the right of a pair of field stars.

ngc 2256 which was nearby. This was fainter than 2258 requiring averted vision and a detailed CDC map to locate. Seems to be just over 220mly away. It's rv is stated as 5252.

The brightest galaxy tonight was ngc 2314. I could hold this one with direct vision in the 10 inch scope with my trusty 6mm eyepiece. It sits in a rough square of stars.

finally saw ngc 2551. Another very faint small object but pretty obvious with averted vision.

Now these ellipticalls are supposed to be in groups are they not? But these all looked pretty isolated to me. Anyone know if they are part of any group?

so I have now reached 590 galaxies.

as the secondary mirror started to fog Leo and Virgo tempted me to get the hair dryer out but I decided I had already enough to dream about!

what an amazing universe.

Mark

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Double Kick Drum

Double Kick Drum

Posted
Posted

Galaxy hunting in Camelopardalis..... not easy, especially with an equatorial mount. NGC 2403 is my only success to date.

No good start points for star hopping and restricted movement in my mount at that declination make it more difficult than many other constellations. I did try for NGC 2655 last night but gave up after nearly half an hour. I really need a dob! :grin:

Given that, I would say it is a fantastic haul!

590 galaxies is very impressive indeed. I am currently on 137.

Clear skies!

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acey

acey

Posted
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Ngc 2258

ngc 2256

ngc 2314.

ngc 2551.

Anyone know if they are part of any group?

2551 is described at Simbad as being part of a group:

http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?protocol=html&Ident=NGC2551

It is an Arakelian high-surface-brightness galaxy.

Just west of it is NGC 2553, or Arp 9, a barred spiral that apparently belongs to a group called LGG 154

http://cc.oulu.fi/~hsalo/treuthardt2007_205772.web.pdf

NGC 2553 A,B,C are marked on Uranometria chart 6 as being in the immediate vicinity.

Just north of NGC 2551 are NGC 2550 and 2544, and close to the east Uranometria shows 2614, 2629, 2630, 2633, 2634, 2636, 2646, plus some IC and UGC galaxies. I think maybe these are all more distant than the Arp 9 group (LGG 154) but would need to check.

2314 is close in a line with IC2174 and UGC3636 but is otherwise isolated. 2256/58 seem to be in a sparse isolated group that only has a few IC and UGC galaxies as other members.

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Mark at Beaufort

Mark at Beaufort

Posted
Posted

Ok I sent him an email.....

Do you find the book useful.

I use it..in fact 2258 was from the book and 2256 was on the chart as well so I went for it

mark

Mark

I look forward to his reply.

I had the book in November and used it a few times to cross reference details whilst hunting down objects from the deepskywatch website of 666 DSOs. Useful book so thanks for the recommendation.

Hopefully we will meet up next month and perhaps we can do some observing together.

Mark

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cotterless45

cotterless45

Posted
Posted

Wow, good haul. Viewed all the brightest ones, listing all the faints for dark trips.

Just love these faint overlooked constellations Lynx, Lacerta, Draco and Camelopardalis. To the south there's loads of brighter stuff in Lepus , Monoceros and Eridanus, let's here it for the little guys!

Looking forward to seeing you at SGL8, we're down in the far naughty corner with a bottle bank,

Nick.

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Terrynak

Terrynak

Posted
Posted

This is one of the few constellations that I have not actively mined for galaxies. So far I have only seen NGC 2403 (the brightest one in Camelopardalis) and IC 342 - huge at 21', but with a very low surface brightness due to partial obscuration by stars and dust from the galactic equator of the Milky Way. I was able to see it (the nucleus at least) only by going to a dark sky, green-blue site with my 102mm F/9.8 refractor (Celestron NexStar 102GT) .

NGC 2366 and 2314 are on my observing list and should be doable with my little 100mm Newtonian at my usual orange-zone site on a night of very good transparency/seeing. NGC 2258 & 2551 are also on my observing list but would be more difficult, maybe doable on my 114mm (4.5") Newtonian at my orange zone site.

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mdstuart

mdstuart

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The reply from Ted

Hi Mark,

Very nice hearing from you!

There are countless galaxies visible through mid-sized telescopes that I did not look for, since I set an arbitrary magnitude cutoff of 13.2 for my observing list (to keep the project managable). This is far brighter than the magnitude limit for such telescopes, especially if highly detailed charts are used while looking through the main scope--something I did not do. In my survey I used charts with guide stars only down to 8th or 9th magnitude. I would use these guide stars along with the 35mm finder to point the instrument ensemble at roughly the right spot. I would then look for the given galaxy by scanning the field through the main telescope, without reference to any other charts or photos. Since most of the galaxies on my list are relatively bright, I would usually either see them right away or find them pretty easily. My goal was comprehensively to observe all those galaxies in the northern sky that are magnitude 13.2 or brighter, not to seek out more challenging but still observable galaxies, of which, again, there are many, many more than the roughly 2,000 on my list.

Thanks very much for recommending my book and wishing me well with it.

- Ted

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Terrynak

Terrynak

Posted
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Terrynak

you are going well with the 4.5 inch scope! Try all the galaxies rated 2 or higher on my galaxy listings here

http://bristolweathe...nomy/listm.html

ngc2655 in cam is visible in my 80 mm bins from an urban site so should be possible in your scope.

Mark

Thanks for your observing list! Looking at Camelopardalis, every DSO on your list (galaxies, open cluster, planetary nebula) is already on my "to-see" (or "seen" in the case of NGC 2403 & IC 342) observing list, except for NGC 1573 and 2591. These were omitted from my list because they have a visual magnitude of 12.2 and 12.5 respectively, and would be too difficult for my small scopes (4.5" and smaller) in my semi-dark (orange-zone) sky. Could be doable with my 4.5" F/5 Newtonian or my 4" F/9.8 refractor in a dark sky site (green or darker) though.

So far I've detected/observed, logged and sketched 307 galaxies, 91% with my 100mm (3.9") scope,

Here is a pic of my 4.5" Orion Starblast 4.5, similar to a Skywatcher 1145p but with a shorter focal ratio / length of F4 / 450mm. Comes with an EQ1 mount like the Skywatcher, but here, I've attached it to an alt-az Vixen Mini-Porta mount.

post-19733-0-52386200-1360035091_thumb.j

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michael.h.f.wilkinson

michael.h.f.wilkinson

Posted
Posted

Nice report. I have spotted NGC 2366 before, but I have yet to spot the others. I might give NGC 2314 a bash, should be within range (that and one more should get me to 290 galaxies). Might try the others but much depends on transparency. An extra few inches of aperture would not be amiss either ;)

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Terrynak

Terrynak

Posted
Posted

Terrynak

amazing 300 with a 4.5 inch....from Los Angeles as well...lots of lp no doubt..

send me your list and I will do a cross check. You might help me with any I have missed and I can suggest some for you.

mark

Mark - do you have an email so I can send you my list of galaxies as an attachment. I tried cutting and pasting the table onto here, but it doesn't preserve the table format - everything "wraps around".

Out of my 307 galaxies, 278 were found with my 3.9" scope - I used my 4.5" scope to find only 20 objects, and the remaining 9 were seen with either my 80mm or 4" refractor.

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