Wild whale galaxies

[YKSE]

Forecast was a totally stary sky, just too good not to take the half an hour trip to dark site with C8. It turned out to be quite cloudy, less than 1 hour most clear sky in my 4 hours' stay.

Wind: 4m/s(forecast 3-1m/s), 5-7m/s gust,

Temp: 2°- to 3°(forecast 1° to 3°)

Hhumidity 83-81(forecast 81-90%), dewheater not needed(dry car), partly cloudy most of the time
SQM  20.8-20.9 when most clear.

NGC 50 (galaxy Cetus, mag 11.4, SB 13.1, 2.4'x1.8')  DV in 123X, bright core, elongated, PA150.

NGC 47 (galaxy Cetus, mag 13.0, SB 14.5, 2.3'x1.3')  in the same 1° FOV as NGC 50, AV in 71x and 123x

NGC 54 (galaxy Cetus, mag 13.7, SB 13.0, 1,3'x0.5') still in the same 1°FOV, but couldn't have positive ID in 71x nor 123x

NGC 113 (galaxy Cetus, mag 12.5, SB 12.6), 1.4'x1.0') 71x showed suspected brightning, 123x in AV showed more steady round shape.

NGC 34 (galaxy Cetus), is the merger result of two disk galaxies, beautifull pictures like this

There're some different note about its brightness, I'm inclined to trust this source:

http://www.deepskylog.org/index.php?indexAction=detail_object&raDSS=0+11+7&declDSS=-12+-6&object=NGC+34&imagesize=15

Mag 12.8, SB 13.1 size 2.1'x0.8', fits reasonably well the 0.25° chart

 

The star to the left of NGC 34 is a lot brighter, the merged galaxy is suspected in 71x in AV, 123x AV more clearer, around  150-160x best, still no more than round patch in AV. I would expected those with large scopes in dark site should get more detail of this one.

Clouds rolled in around midnight, time to call it a night.

[FenlandPaul]

That's an interesting collection that I've never visited, Yong.  I'm looking forward to my used copy of Webb Society "Clusters of Galaxies"  arriving as it should have a few more targets like NGC 50, 47 & 54 - I'm really drawn to the visual appeal of multiple targets in the same field (or maybe I'm just lazy and that seems an efficient way to observe!) 

Nice report; I'd say it was worth the frustration of driving to a dark sky that was cloudier than expected!

Paul