Hickson Compact Groups 8, Moon nil

[Martin Meredith]

Although we're approaching the shortest night of the year and the moon is pretty bright, it shouldn't stop us enjoying some visual feasts on these warm nights… 

On this occasion I fancied looking at some of the Hickson Compact Groups of galaxies, so, armed with Reiner Vogel's excellent freely-downloadable guide, I listed some in Leo, adding a couple in Canes Venatici. Why Leo? Well, the moon was close by in neighbouring Virgo so it was a challenge to see just how much it might spoil the fun (or not, as it turned out).

Anyway, these are the results. The headline-grabbers are HCG 44 and HCG 68 as well as Copeland's Septet, since in each case some of the distinct morphologies can be made out, but the other groupings are really interesting too. Its a lot of fun trying to identify the fainter members "live" with the aid of various documents on-screen. That for me is the challenge of the Hickson groups, since many of their constituents are on the border of detectability in my scope. 

HCG 44 is barely a compact group compared to say Copeland's Septet or HCG 70, whereas HCG 54 is extremely compact. I could just about make out two knots. DSS images show a mini-necklace of galaxies. These HCGs are the double stars of the galaxy world.

These are not all at the same scale, and I reduced the image a little to reduce download times.

Thanks for reading

Martin

[nytecam]

Nice Martin - Leo's too far west for me now over neighbours

[Martin Meredith]

Cheers Nytecam. The solution is a grab-and-go   . Seriously, I wonder what these objects would look like through an 80mm in London? I used to work in Teddington some decades ago -- I think it coincided with a lapse of interest in astronomy...

Martin

[nytecam]

Cheers Nytecam. The solution is a grab-and-go   . Seriously, I wonder what these objects would look like through an 80mm in London? I used to work in Teddington some decades ago -- I think it coincided with a lapse of interest in astronomy...Martin

Funny you should say that    The eye seems to overrule the brain on light pollution and then forgets it bought a telescope to see fainter things in the night sky.  I've long ignored the state of the sky by eye, beyond that it's cloudfree, then get to work.  Recent shots down to mag 17 stars in 20s exp via 30cm SCT+Lodestar-Mx2 camera so I'm happy

[Paul81]

Awesome stuff - especially given the bright moon and short nights! 

[Paul73]

Nice work Martin.

I'm a sucker for groups of galaxies. It is only when viewing these that I get what "Wow" sense of the staggering distances involved.

Must be great to see them live on your screen.

Paul

[Martin Meredith]

Thanks Pauls 73 and 81   

We do have the advantage here of somewhat longer nights, it has to be said.

I also love galaxy clusters/groups. What continues to amaze me is that a 3" achromat can pull out these fairly faint objects in 60s or less. I also like the fact that the images to some extent approximate the visual view in larger scopes (apart from the bloated stars). I don't mind seeing faint fuzzies in these images (so long as there are several of them in an interesting configuration!).

Martin

[Phil Fargaze]

I gave Hickson 68 a go back in April from a dark sky in Sussex with my Watec 120 and C9.25. To be honest I wasnt expecting much but I was really surprised at some decent results. I could make out at least five galaxies without the use of a finder chart. I`m definitely going to look out for some more Hickson clusters when the Autumn comes, by the looks of your results there are some good targets to hunt down.

[HiloDon]

Although we're approaching the shortest night of the year and the moon is pretty bright, it shouldn't stop us enjoying some visual feasts on these warm nights… 

On this occasion I fancied looking at some of the Hickson Compact Groups of galaxies, so, armed with Reiner Vogel's excellent freely-downloadable guide, I listed some in Leo, adding a couple in Canes Venatici. Why Leo? Well, the moon was close by in neighbouring Virgo so it was a challenge to see just how much it might spoil the fun (or not, as it turned out).

Anyway, these are the results. The headline-grabbers are HCG 44 and HCG 68 as well as Copeland's Septet, since in each case some of the distinct morphologies can be made out, but the other groupings are really interesting too. Its a lot of fun trying to identify the fainter members "live" with the aid of various documents on-screen. That for me is the challenge of the Hickson groups, since many of their constituents are on the border of detectability in my scope. 

HCGs_reduced.png

HCG 44 is barely a compact group compared to say Copeland's Septet or HCG 70, whereas HCG 54 is extremely compact. I could just about make out two knots. DSS images show a mini-necklace of galaxies. These HCGs are the double stars of the galaxy world.

These are not all at the same scale, and I reduced the image a little to reduce download times.

Thanks for reading

Martin

Thanks Martin for the info. You got me interested in this and I spent all last night searching for HCG's. Vogel's guide was quite helpful. You can find some of my captures in my album at this link.

http://stargazerslounge.com/gallery/album/3237-hickson-galaxy-clusters/