Bill S

Wikipedia does list Palomar 5 as Shapley-Sawyer Class XII (Almost no concentration towards the center.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palomar_5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapley–Sawyer_Concentration_Class Its host galaxy seems to be doing a bit of no good. Tidal tails. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1909.03048.pdf

I took my snapshot and put it into All Sky Plate Solver. I then took the plate solved image and moved the cursor to the coordinates for the quasar (z=3.89). I have not managed to see even a blemish that I could claim was the object. (Even with my wishful thinking amplifier turned up to 11. ) Best regards Bill

I always think that a lot of the pleasure of observing astronomical objects is learning about them as well as seeing them. Sometimes it's reading about them that is the spur to having a look. In most galaxies almost all the stars are rotating in the same direction. There are some galaxies where this is not the case. NGC 4550 is a lenticular (i.e. lens-shaped) S0 galaxy. Approximately half its stars are rotating one way and half the other. This paper talks about the discovery of this by Vera Rubin and her co-workers. http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1992ApJ...394L...9R Over the years it was suggested that two galaxies rotating in opposite directions merged to give this multi-spin result. It is not believed this is the case. Rather the galaxy originally consisted of stars rotating in just one direction and then a stream of gas rotating the other way merged with it and new stars formed as a separate population in this counter rotating part. Mike Merrifield discussed this in this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oie90j989k Anyway, this is what it looked like to me: NGC 4550 is the one in the middle. The bright galaxy up and to the left in this snapshot is NGC 4551, which is an E2 elliptical galaxy. Best regards Bill

OK! Here are a couple of snapshots. Have I caught the quasar, a hot pixel or my wishful thinking? It was very handy that I could use Jocular to flip and orient my image to match yours. As you'll see I left the capture running a long time. Martin - do you have the RA and Dec for this object so I can I try looking at the right place in a plate solved image. (Assuming I can plate solve it, of course.) Best regards

Hello Dick Thanks for these. They are interesting objects. A warm spring evening makes observing that bit more civilised. Best regards

As Mike JW said, 'It would now be further away...' Yep according to my look at Ned Wright's calculator that Martin referred to and a handy table based on it in the RAS diary for a Z of 3.25, so a look back time of 11.7 Gyr then the current distance (the term used in the RAS diary table) is around 21.9 Gly. If you think I have got this wrong you may well be correct! It's definitely not close!

Hello again I've found another way of making it not work. I put four files in slowing and things seemed be running but then it crashed. Log attached. Best regards als.log

Latest go with some files which seemed to stack OK in Deep Sky Stacker. ALS started and read the files from the scan folder and then closed. The log file is attached. Best regards als.log

Well I tried! Tried running the latest (15 May) build of ALS under 64 bit Windows 10. Slow to start up and did not successfully stack a set of CR2 (Canon 650D) files. It appeared to keep only one file and reject the others. Tried different series of files with the same result. The problem may be my files, of course. Most recent attempts have led to the program starting to read image files from the scan folder and then closing. Best regards Bill S

I thought this video about a professional astronomer's purchase of a Unistellar eVscope and how he relates its use to his work may be of interest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glOWZoFnB8w&t=383s Best regards Bill S

Well I have sorted the problem but not in the way I would have preferred. I can control the filter wheel from SLL but not using my laptop with USB 3.1 ports. Instead I use a laptop which has some USB 2 ports. In addition following some email discussions with Terry at Starlight Xpress I have switched to SLL Version 3.0. This is fine for my purposes. I can control the filter wheel with no problems connected to a USB 3.1 port using the SX filter wheel control program or APT. You may wish to discuss the problem you are having with Terry. He had some questions for me about the age and hence firmware of my filter wheel. Martin Meredith is hoping to make some additions to Jocular that will allow it to control the image collection including filter wheel but this feature is not available yet. In practice I mainly do mono only imaging at present. Best regards

Alan - it's amazing what you managed to see and record of these supernovae. NV in the right hands (and the right eyes) is amazing. Following your earlier reports I had a look at several SNs and your latest set prompted me to have look again. Mike JW has nicely covered the sort of thing I observed the same night using a similar approach (i.e. Lodestar for me, Ultrastar for Mike with live stacking). Just for interest here are a couple. NGC 3643 SN 2020hvf is one that the BAA has highlighted in a recent email to members and they are keen people make observations of it. The other one I thought I would share is M61 SN 2020jfo. Nottingham University's Sixty Symbols / Brady Haran's latest video is about this supernova with a lot of background information that people may find interesting. Presented by Prof. Mike Merrifield. I notice that Mike Merrifield used a Unistellar eVscope. I'll post a link to a YouTube video video talking about his first light experience in the EEVA Equipment Section. Best regards Bill

I observed this pair of galaxies in April having seen a sketch of them by Dale Holt of the Webb Deep Sky Society. Dale has his own version of EEVA. He uses an analogue Watec camera feeding onto a screen to increase the light gathering of his 505 cm reflector. He then records his observation by sketching them. My method is with a Lodestar X2 on a 20 cm Newtonian captured, stacked and processed using Starlight Live and Jocular. My reason for posting them - I just think they look interesting. They were the subject of the Hubble Space Telescope's 27th Anniversary image in 2017. https://scitechdaily.com/hubbles-celebrates-27th-anniversary-with-image-of-spiral-galaxies-ngc-4302-and-ngc-4298/ Some of Dale Holt's recent sketches can be seen on the Webb Deep Sky Society's web site: https://www.webbdeepsky.com/observations/ Best regards Bill

As you (and others) say M13 is an object to be looked at, studied and thought about.

Yes, I saw that article in S&T - the 'current' June 2020 issue and thought it would be a good one to follow up. You have done really well capturing and identifying all those HII regions. As you'll have seen there's also an article by Rod Mollise on Video Astronomy. Not a lot that will be brand new for people who are already involved but of interest to many. Best regards Bill PS I don't know where this Quote bar has come from and I don't know how to remove it!

Yes, that's very good.

No experience of this but these two links may be of interest: https://www.imo.net/resources/metrec/ https://britastro.org/node/12239 Good luck with this Bill

Thanks for these Mike. They are well worth a look.

VV 224 Arp 242 (NGC 4676 A & An object or pair of objects that is in both the Vorontsov-Velyaminov and Arp catalogues. This pair of galaxies is known as The Mice NGC 4676A is the one with the straight bright tail. It’s about 304 Mly away. Classed as a type SB0-a - spiral galaxy with bar. NGC 4676B at a similar distance is classed as S0-a - lenticular galaxy. The Arp catalogue entry categorises the pair as ‘having the appearance of fission’. There’s clearly some tidal action going on suggesting a collision and interaction. A complete merger may result. Cheers Bill

Some of the Arp galaxy objects are also Messier objects. Two examples in Virgo are Arp 134 (Messier 49) and Arp 152 (Messier 87). M49 also has the designation NGC 4472. This elliptical galaxy has a magnitude of about 9 and it lies around 56 Mly away. Arp 152 (M87, NGC 4486) is a very interesting object. It was the subject of the Event Horizon Telescope study imaging its supermassive black hole. It is a very big elliptical galaxy about 54 Mly away. The supermassive black hole is producing a relativistic jet shooting out about 5000 ly. It is a bit of a challenge to observe this but EEVA is a way of making this possible. Zoomed in and stretched differently to show the jet. This snapshot from last year shows the jet rather better. Cheers Bill

Hickson 67 Time for another Hickson Compact Group I reckon. Hickson 67 is also designated as one the Vorontsov-Velyaminov interacting galaxy groups VV 135 The labelling of the members is based on the Hickson grouping. Looking at the Vorontsov-Velyaminov atlas I’m not sure whether Hickson 67b is classed as part of VV 135. The most obvious components are Hickson 67a, which is NGC 5306 and Hickson 67b, which is MCG-01-35-013 (PGC 40917). NGC 5306 is 331 Mly based on its redshift. Mike JW included this one in a post about a year ago and gave some more information: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/333113-hickson-64-and-67/[M1] For some reason I like the appearance of the NGC 5306 with the surrounding galaxies and stars. The non-viewing weather is giving me a bit of time to look at some of the observations I made thanks to the clear nights we had recently. Cheers Bill

An impressive report with lots of tantalising detail. Some good suggestions for others to look at. The forecast does look promising. That’s probably put the hex on it. Bill

Yes, Mike. I also looked at it on the evening of 15 April and it's a shadow of its former self. Your pictures show the detail better. Best regards.

Fine shots. Not just a two for one offer on galaxy groups. It's also VV 116. It's something I had a look at last year. Definitely elegant as you say, Mike. Best regards Bill

Inspired by Mike’s and roelb’s images of NGC 5907 I decided to have a look at this galaxy myself. As is usual I spent more time looking up information than actually observing. Again, as usual, I found one thing leads to another on the Web. The number of tabs I can have open on my browser is only exceeded by the number of shortcuts on my desktop… As Mike said NGC 5907 is also known as the Splinter or Knife Edge Galaxy. Its classification is Sb+ or Sc according to the sources I looked at so a spiral without a bar and not very tightly wound arms. Of course, its orientation does not help to see its spiral character. Sometimes it is referred to as NGC 5906 but this is not correct. NGC 5906 is a particular part of NGC 5907 (sometimes called a GxyP). In this case it’s an HII region of star formation. I think it’s the bright bit I have labelled in my snapshot. To further add to my confusion at least one website says NGC 5907 is Messier 102. There has been a bit of controversy over M102. It was thought to be a duplicate observation of M101 for many years but now many people say that it is NGC 5866. NGC 5907 is definitely not M102, although it is a member of the NGC 5866 group. NGC 5907 is interesting for having a low (metallicity i.e. a lack of heavier chemical elements) and few giant stars. It is mainly dwarf stars. Best regards Bill S