Mike JW

Arp 99 in Pegasus is always a favourite to view for a few minutes. Arp classed it as a spiral with an eliptical on its arm NGC 7549, at the top with its arm extending to the elliptical NGC 7550 but he also included the NGC 7547 (spiral), on the right. The group are about 200 million lyrs away. This group are also Hickson 93 (component E is just out of shot to the left) and WBL 700. NGC 7549 with the extended arms is classed as SBcd, NGC 7547 (Hick 93C) is also a ring galaxy (R)SAB, pec which is hinted at in my slightly zoomed in shot. Mike

Hickson 94 in Pegasus is always an enjoyable one to visit. It is also Arp 170 and components A and B make up VV181. The magnitudes of the group range from 14 down to 16. A and B are ellipticals. E is a spiral. C, D, F and G are lenticular. Mike

August 3rd. WBL 699 in Pegasus. I have posted this one because it is such a poor group visually (it is too easy to always post the exciting groups). The main galaxy is UGC 12444 (mag 14) and lies about 300 million lyrs away. The other two (one below and to the right, the other top right near the edge) are both mag 15. Mike

August 3rd. PCG 232342+163117 lies in Pegasus, in a busy field of galaxies. The four components are mag 18/19 galaxies. Mike

August 3rd. SHK 361 lies in Pegasus and has 10 members. However in this shot there are other galaxies captured as well. SHK 361 sits within Abell 2524. Mike

August 3rd. In complete contrast to Martin's excellent post above here is VV 1960 in Pegasus. The main galaxy is UGC 12288 (mag 13.8). Little is known about this pair. UGC 12288 might be a spiral. It (they ) are about 318 million lyrs away. Mike

August 3rd - My first object after the summer break. A real cracker. NGC 7217 (UGC 11914) has it all (well worth looking up Hubble images). Classified as (R)SA(r)ab, Sy LINER. In fact there is a nuclear ring as well. It lies about 30 million lyrs away, is mag 11 and as indicated is an unbarred spiral. The middle ring is weak and the outer ring is much stronger and has most of the H11 regions (very blue in Hubble images). Overall the galaxy is gas poor and strangely has stars in a counter rotation. This suggests a merger. One merger model indicates a Lenticular merging with two small high gas galaxies. The other theory suggests a merger of two galaxies with the rings still developing. Surrounding the galaxy is a very large spherical halo (a spheroid) - again best seen in the Hubble images. Below - same stack but stretched slightly differently. Mike

Hi, great idea to do that and as is always the case your post is so professional - great. All the best Mike (from a cloudy GB - I have not observed for weeks - longest run of cloudy nights that I can remember)

I think the shot is very good when you consider the size of the scope. What do you mean by 'blockier'?. The tracking may be drifting and that could give you stars that are not round. I get around this by using shorter subs. Mike

Nice one - I must remember to keep a look out for these sorts of shots. Well done. Mike

Simply and clearly explained - my kind of approach. Thank you for posting it. Mike

For those who think flying saucers do not exist; here is the evidence - FGC 1953 (UGC 10043) in Serpens. No need to worry it is moving away from us! Mike

NGC 5914B in Bootes is around the 1 billion lyr distance and is near to VV 1750. I could not find any other information on this galaxy. Mike

This Nova was picked up on June 12, estimated at mag 6. See https://www.britastro.org/node/26011. Mike

Martin that is a superb shot, no doubt due to the excellent sky conditions. The colour works well. Mike

Hi Martin, You did well with the Pal 5 - so much better than my set up. Makes me think I should try again but you do have the advantage of it being higher in the sky. Envious of you being able to get the low down globs. Mike

Congratulations on completing the tour - well worth it. Mike

I have checked my M82 shots from the past - no sign of Hoag 1-3. However I notice below the number 9 of 20.9 the faint fuzz you have picked up is probably a galaxy at 2.6 Gyr distance.

Colour makes such a difference. I have this PN on my list for the 15. As you know I just love a double star and great to clearly see the colour contrast in Bu 158. Mike

Arp 72 in Serpens - NGC 5996/5994. Also known as VV016. I visited this Arp twice in 24 hours, trying to see just how much of the extensive faint arms I could pick up. As is often the case I get side tracked. Arp classified this pair as spiral galaxy with small high surface brightness companion on an arm. The two galaxies are separated by about 1 million lyrs and lie 157/156 million lyrs away. 5996 is classified SBc pec or SBc,WR,H11,Sbrst . The interaction between the two galaxies has certainly disrupted 5996, leading to much star formation (H11 regions) and intense star formation (Starburst). Spectral analysis shows the presence of Wolf Rayet stars (WR). My upper shot is a longer exposure to get hints of the extensive/faint material on the NGC 5994 side (the small companion) and also hints of the sweeping arm to the north (up) which then curls left and down. The lower shot has two distant galaxies marked - both a mere 3.8 Gyr away!!!! I have not checked out the various fuzz spots for the presence of galaxies. Mike

I probably should go back to this one and run the camera for longer. I did actually run it for about 5 minutes and then deleted the poor subs (the unsteady ones). As usual, so much to see.. Mike

Good point about the accuracies at that distance. Mike

June 1st 2021 - there was me pottering about in Serpens and looking at my lists I saw this bright galaxy - NGC 5921 (mag 10). What a surprise when this ring galaxy appeared on the screen. Classified as SB(r)bc LINER (= bright nucleus). It lies 79 million lyrs away, has a strong bar and a slightly elliptical bulge. The two spiral arms have many H11 regions (I picked up a few of them). This inner ring galaxy was not even on my list of ring galaxies. Mike

Serpens has just one SHK - number 360 and what a gem it is, well worth a visit. The scope was not tracking very well but Jocular managed to stack the subs well enough to get this view. As with most of the SHKs it is easy to pass them by. Many of the fuzz spots in the wider fov shot are mag 19 galaxies. 14 members make up SHK 360 with the brightest central galaxy coming in at mag 16.9 and down to mag 21 (rather pleased to pick this up). The complete group is not likely to be a true group as distance ranges from 1.378Gly to 1.440Gly. Using the NED data the reality is there are two (or more?) galaxy groups that we see in line of sight. Mike

Pal 5 in Serpens. I visited this globular as recorded at the start of this thread. Here it is again but this time with the 15/ultrastar set up. Even with this large aperture and over 5 minutes of exposure it is still very faint. Mike