Mike JW

Hi Tony, I have Aladin downloaded onto my laptop. Called up NGC 1169, then I have to get Aladin to download object info for the area...No catalogues missing from Jocular. Mike

WISEA J030220.32+461751.4 I think. Mike

I have enjoyed seeing your results and info. Some detail in them. Mike

I looked at my shot from a year ago but it adds nothing to yours - no obvious interactions but as we know Arp got quite a lot incorrect. Mike

Hi Tony, Good to see you are back in action. Excellent wide fov shot with so much on view. Arp 113 was classified as Ellipticals and Elliptical like galaxies close to and perturbing spirals. NGC 70 is the spiral and NGC 71 and 68 are presumably the E and E like galaxies but is there any perturbing on the go? Mike

This time I visited a couple of targets in Aquarius. PCG 221755-013227. Yeah, I know its just a collection of little fuzz spots. The brightest is mag 18.6 in the centre and the other 3 are mag 19.. They are not a true group. The central gx is about 1.57 Gly and the topmost one is a mere 1.86 Gly. PCG 222121+002743 - at first glance I thought they were stars. The two brighter gx are around the mag 17.6. and are very distant from each other. Top one is 0.860 Gly and the lower one 2.7 Gly. To the left the mag 18.6 is way out there at 3.4 Gly. Look carefully to the right of the lower bright gx, close to and just inside the red line is the fourth group member at mag 18.7 and a mind blowing 7 Gly away. Mike

Enjoyed the shots, inspirational. Sharp stars are a winner. Mike

Always good to share each others observations. Mike

Hi Martin, It amazes me that after all those billions of years the cluster is still together despite its many journeys around the galaxy. I looked at my notes from observing it visually with the 20" - faint loose cluster!. Great to see it in more detail. As to carbon stars - always pleasurable to track them down visually. Mike

NGC 561 in Andromeda. As you can see from the caption details I was not going for 561. I was in fact taking a look at FGC 170 but when the image appeared on the screen, there was this ring galaxy and all sorts of other objects of interest - faint galaxies, quasars and a 3 pairs of stairs surrounding the faint PGC Mike

Impressed. Mike

Arp 190 is an interesting object. Dr. Arp classified the pair as galaxies (not S or E) with filaments. However they both appear to be spirals. Arp thought the filament belonged to a third galaxy (the small white spot to the right of the lower galaxy) but this galaxy is likely to be a star in our own neighbourhood. Redshift puts the lower of the pair at about 475 million lyrs away but there is no info on the upper galaxy. The obvious elliptical below the pair has a similar redshift and might there just be a tidal stream between it and lower galaxy of the pair? Colour images show the upper spiral as blue and the lower spiral as red. Mike

Time we had another globular in this thread. Pal 2 in Auriga. It is one of the more distant globulars at around the 90,000 lyrs from us. It has a very eccentric orbit and currently is thought to be at its closest to the galactic centre. It is also heading towards at around 133km/s - a bit of a long wait before we get a close up view. The cluster is also partially obscured by lying in the the galactic plane. As it is an old cluster it will have plenty of red stars. Mike

EGB -1. I have struggled to find any info on this one, other than it is about 2000lyrs away. IC 1747 . The CS is mag 15.8. My shot hints at that dark region around the CS. The thick outer ring has two much brighter sections - bi-polar. Outside of the thick ring I have just started to pick up a fainter fringe. I certainly did not expect to pick up the dark 'spokes' (x 3). BV 5-1 and here is another BV in Cassiopeia BV 5-2 - another weird PN. Nice image - Böhm-Vitense 5-2 (BV 5-2, Sh 2-179) PN G121.6+00.0 photo - jshuder photos at pbase.com Mike

Hi Bill, At last I got to take a look at 29P. I was amazed at how extensive the halo has become. It also appears to have a double nucleus - which I assume is a star it is about to crash into!!! Mike PS and here is a better shot 24hrs later. The nucleus looks elongated, inner and outer halo. Also there is a sliver of brightness coming off the nucleus (to the right and up)

Simeiz 22 (Sh 2 -188) is an intriguing object. Why just an arc?, why filaments?. See Sh2-188 Nebula (iac.es) for the full picture. Sure enough there is more going on than just an arc. See 901405.pdf;sequence=1 (herts.ac.uk) for a model of how its structure has come about. Briefly put the model suggestion a triple wind hypothesis. Initially there was the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGM) wind. This is the slow solar wind that a star in the giant red stage is sending out. It would appear that this wind as it slammed into the Inter Stella Medium caused the bright arc (and tail) that we see. At this stage a PN had not formed. Next as the star collapsed the fast stellar wind blasted outward forming a ring structure (see the first link) as the two winds interacted. However the star is moving quite fast through the inter stella medium (ISM) - 125+/-Kms towards the bright arc and this third wind along with the other two winds has given rise to the observed structure. The bright arc is a result of the high velocity of the central star in the direction of this bright arc. The star is displaced from the geometric centre and its high velocity causing thin shock compressed filaments concentric to the bright arc. Sh 2-188 is one of the largest PN known, about 8.5 lyrs across. Mike

Hi, A few thoughts. No need to get a focal reducer as your scope is F5. Stacking in Sharpcap - I think you need to buy the SharpCap Pro version to do stacking. Personally I find sharpcap way to complicated for my EEVA observing - never had success with it but others do well with it. Cheap! - you get what you pay for (whether for cameras, scopes, mounts) Mono cameras are more sensitive than colour cameras. Altair GPCAM2 290M Mono Guide Imaging EAA Camera would probably get you started. I tried one of these but did not get on with the Altair software or Sharpcap - I am not particularly software minded! Hopefully you have looked through the EEVA section to see what folk are doing/scopes being used. Jupiter/Albireo - OK you were trying things out but you get better views visually with your scope then messing about with a camera on those objects. Mike

Hi Martin, Wonderful set of captures. If I was certain my scope could reach focus with a filter wheel, I would order the gear immediately. Mike

Hi Martin, Always enjoy your colour views of clusters. Surprised me just how many yellow (orange) stars there are in this one - function of the clusters age? I shall note this gem for a visual look at the "diamonds sparkling away against the black background" with the 15 (wish I still had the 20!). Below is the Aladin/SDSS9 view. Mike

Hi Vin, I think the focal point for the STF reducer is around the 47mm mark. I agree you have got the central star in M57. Mike

Hi Achim, I so enjoy your style. You pick up/sketch those little details that make a sketch come alive. It is time I got back to sketching but I busy myself with other interests besides astronomy. All the best Mike

Hi David, Excellent read and so informative, highlighting just what can be observed using the EAA technique. I fancy the answer to why do the arms curve back to the centre could be due to the angle of view? Mike

Hi Martin, I have just had a very enjoyable read of the articles. I viewed these Arps a year ago but did not seek out any further information - glad you did. Minkowski Object - how interesting and re-looking at my original shot I should have pondered what was happening. Also I had not picked up that NGC 541 had at some point interacted with NGC 547 and hence the tidal stream between the two galaxies. Below is rather a messy shot (lots of dust bunnies had to be lost!) using the C11 from last year. If I get a chance I will point the 15 at it and see if I can get more of the tidal stream/cleaner view. Mike

Hi Martin, I took a look at the SDSS9 and the blue dot is clearly a star in our galaxy. The article is technical but I get the gist of it and the images showing the likely places for IMBH candidates is good. Mike

and here is four more from Aquarius. SHK 334 SHK 302 - there is meant to be 9 in the group but I cannot locate it! They are 1.1/1.2 billion lyrs away. SHK 301 - tonight's mystery! Absolutely nothing there. NED locates 301 to SHK 303 - So close to the bright star that I missed it at first. the same place but shows no galaxy group!!!!