Mike JW

A very good haul of the UZCs. I too took a look at the 280 group - beautiful group. The edge on galaxy at the top caught my eye. - NGC 7345. Below is the close up and using a log stretch. It appears to have a double nucleus ? NED data does not show an object for this second nucleus - interesting. UZC-FK 281 - NGC 7389 - Martin you mention a close up - see mine below. I agree with you that the Saturn effect is likely to be a ring galaxy seen from an angle. You mentioned Stephan's Quintet in the thread = UZC-FK 279 - so here it is from the other night - probably my best attempt ever. Mike

Hi Martin, Plenty to view and enjoy in your posts. The UZC catalogue looks very promising. Delphinus - UZC-FK 269. My shot adds little to yours except for UGC 11568 which intrigued me. Close up is shown below. Obvious asymmetrical dust lane, hints of lumpiness. The galaxy extends quite some length to the north (just picking it up) and the opposite side it starts to curve. Classification seems uncertain Scd? Delphinus UZC-FK 271 - plenty going on with this one. UGC 11623 so clearly a ring galaxy as you indicate. NGC 6956 - what a beauty. Two obvious arms off the bar but is there a third arm coming off to the right and tight to the nucleus. Also the main arm going off to the right does it split? or just an illusion. For the sake of completeness here is the third UZC in Delphinus , UZC-FK 273. not much to say about it!!

Hi, Most likely you picked up the asteroid Sarita ( a main belt asteroid, mag 11.6). I was able to work this out because I have the software Sky Tools 4 and looked up the data for asteroids to see if anything matched to the Pleiades area. https://theskylive.com/guide is a very useful site. Mike

Hi Martin, Your latest Arp and my comments on Arp 3 crossed somewhere in the ether. Re ARP 229 - one of those inspiring views. I just sit there and enjoy the view as it appears on the screen. Here is my close up from a year a go. It is very much a case of a 'little and large' pairing. Your shot gives a hint of the concentric rings - mine does not. However using the same data, reducing the brightness and using log stretch the second shot gives a better hint of the concentric ring structure. Mike

Hi Martin, It is still quite wonderful what a 8" scope will pick up. I have been looking further into Arp 3, so I went back to the original data and like you fiddled with stretches and settings to try to tease out more detail. Firstly Arp 3, is PGC 69293, classed as SA(s)m (in other words it is a magellanic dwarf type of galaxy) so no surprise it has a low surface brightness. It has a mag of 12.9. There seems to be disagreement as to its distance - possibly 64 million lyrs away but more likely 75-80 million llyrs away. Labelled in the re processed shot below are three quasars and it would appear I just got a mag 20.9? at around 10.7 billion lyrs away - staggering thought and the mag 19.3 is even further away. In the zoomed in shot below, the fuzz spots as indicated by the red lines are stars in our galaxy if I have interpreted high resolution images correctly. The remaining fuzz spots are therefore star clusters/formations in the actual galaxy. Mike

SHK 331 SHK 332 and a new one SHK 333 Mike

and here are some more Arps from Aquarius. Arp 3 is a low surface brightness galaxy (which is how Arp classified it), about 60 million lyrs away. Arp 314 was classed in groups of galaxies by Dr Arp and lies about 150 million lyrs away. It would appear that Arp included all four galaxies. All four appear to be interacting with a long tail going off to the SE to the dwarf galaxy (no redshift available) - just got a hint of this tidal stream as well a tidal stream between the two bright galaxies Mike

Well done Bill. I knew these three were well worth observing having had the heads up from Andrew but I could not face the late hour - good for you for being out there in the small hours. Mike

Last night I gave Arp 15 a go and delighted with the result. Arp classified this as galaxy with detached segments. I am not sure what he means by detached segments but in the ring you can see four 'lumpy' bits (massive star forming regions) which could be what he was referring to. The ring (almost a ring) and the large, wide tidal tail suggests an interaction with another galaxy but where is it? Mike

Hi Martin, Below is my effort from last night. I went for 8 minutes to match your time. Picking up the same fuzz spots as your shot and I have added in some quasers as well, including a mag 21.8 - questionable!!! At the top of the fov are lots of fuzz spots which I assume are actually galaxies. Mike

Last night I took a look at VV 1955. What intrigues me is it would appear to be a pair of elliptical galaxies which are very close to each other and most likely interacting, yet the VV catalogue gives a classification as NNNP; a triple with a tight pair. The question is where is the third member or is one of the ellipticals really two galaxies? Hence my desire for a closer look. The zoomed in shot below indicates some possible disruption to the southern elliptical. Its core is elongated. I can not see any signs of third galaxy - mystified!!! Mike

I tend to agree about questioning if you are picking up mag 20 galaxies. My understanding is once you go beyond mag 18 the data gets less reliable. I have just cross referenced the fuzz spots to the Aladin/NED info and they coincide with galaxies and the magnitudes given (more or less), the 21.8 is given as 21.4! Mike

Hi Martin, I am glad you are visiting these lower DEC objects as they tend to be in the murk for me. Re the classification, also given SB(rs)c pec H11 = barred spiral with arms that are not tight, no ring (rs) but possible transition to a ring structure, peculiar (as your shot shows - big tidal patch off to the right, and the owl eyes are they dust or patches of few stars), H11 plenty of action on the star formation. Your shot is very close to the standard images. I will try and visit this one if I can. Mike

Hi Martin, always good to see other shots of a target - makes for an added interest/comparison. Re IC 5285 - I had totally failed to look at its interesting neighbour so here is a close up from my original stack of NGC 7489. The brighter sections to the north would appear to coincide with star forming regions when I took a look at the Aladin image. Mike

A great view. I have not visited this area - now on the list. Nice sharp diffraction spikes. So much to see in this shot. Mike

Totally agree - this was a lovely surprise for me. Mike

Hi Martin, I have put these onto my list for tomorrow night - a bit low down for me but I will give it a go. Mike

Hi Martin, Always a challenge to spot the SHK group as the view comes onto the screen. The offset galaxy; Aladin seems to suggest it is a pair of galaxies, distance 1.226 GYr. Mike

WBL 729 in Andromeda is a delightful view. IC 1525 is the wonderful spiral on the right - a classic barred spiral (SBb) with arms coming off the ends of the bar, mag 12, 225 million lyrs away. In the middle is UGC 12888 - unbarred spiral, 227 million lyrs away. Far left above the star is CGCG 548-023, mag 15 and 225 million lyrs away, classified as spiral undergoing starburst. These three galaxies are a true group. Mike

VV 697 in Pegasus is a lovely example of the classification; NNN = separated triples. All three galaxies (mag 15/16) are likely to be a true group as they are all about 850 million lyrs away. The top two appear to be linked by a bridge of stairs, indicating an interaction. Certainly the left galaxy is somewhat disrupted.

Last night I was wandering around Andromeda and I spotted K 1-20 (PK110-12.1) in the Jocular DSO data base. At mag 16 I knew it was going to be a challenge so I experimented with different sub times. See below. It looks like I picked up the central star and a hint of structure. I have not been able to find any information about it. Mike

Thanks Robin - much appreciated. Always something to learn. Mike

Hi Martin, N for nucleus makes sense. Below is a close up of NGC 128 - used a different stretch/settings and added a small amount of tweaking in Photoshop (not really sure what I am doing). I will investigate the other peanut galaxies Mike

Martin - I shall look forward to your shots. Mike

I have been collecting Ring galaxies during September. Here is a feast of them. Arp 145 in Pegasus - Martin posted this one further up the thread and had a collimation issue . I had not focused properly- so annoyed with myself at the poor focusing. I re-did it after this poor shot. Must be something about Arp 145????? NGC 7742 (Pegasus) is SA(r)b, LINER, H11 = unbarred spiral with active central black hole (Seyfert 2), inner ring, plenty star formation. Lies about 62Gyr away. It is known as the Fried Egg Galaxy - obvious in decent images. IC 5285 in Pegasus - SO (but some say spiral) with an outer ring, 275Gyr away. A lovely sight. The outer ring is counter rotating and is thought to have been formed by the galaxy accreting gas. NGC 38 in Pisces (R)SAa is a tight spiral with an outer ring, 363Gyr away. PGC 606 (Pisces) - this little guy really did it for me . Light travel time is 967Gyr - wow. This must be the furthest ring galaxy I have viewed and so clear despite being low down in the murk. Its classification is R(N)3 - apart from the ring notation I have no idea what the rest means. NGC 7428 (Pisces) gives you two rings for the price of one!! - (R)SAB(r)a pec. The peculiar designation probably refers to the long curving arm heading off to the north (up) and curving to the right - look carefully and you can just see a hint of it. This galaxy is always going to lie in the murk for me (Martin - any chance you could try for this?) and finally a real wow shot - NGC 125 (Pisces). It is (R)SAO pec. At first I was not sure why it is peculiar - looks OK to me. High resolution images show an arm coming off from the right and curving upwards. Now for those three galaxies to the left - (NGC 127/8/30). Two are obviously connected by a tidal stream of some sort. The core of NGC128 (the big one) seems to have a double bulge - a double peanut shell of stars - see https://astronomynow.com/2016/05/08/astronomers-detect-double-peanut-shell-galaxies/ These three galaxies , NGC125, the one bottom left and the other two galaxies in the shot (to the right) all lie in the same region of space (188 - 202 Gyr away) so are likely to be a true group. Mike