NGC 2684 group - record distance ? UMA

[mdstuart]

Good afternoon

I was out again last night trawling for galaxies. Amongst the catches of the night was the NGC 2684 group. This is in UMA near the border with Lynx. Its about 50 degrees up by 11pm so nicely placed.

NGC 2684 itself was not too hard with averted vision in my 16 inch scope.

Now there were two other galaxies noted on my chart but I expected them to be beyond me, NGC2686 and NGC 2687 sometimes referred to as NGC2686A and 2687A.

Well I put in my 4.7mm eyepiece to give me x390.

To my amazement I could see the core of NGC 2686. That cannot be right I thought, its a mag 15 galaxy. Anyway it turns out its surface brightness is mag 13 so that makes sense now. I could not pull the fainter NGC 2687 last night. I see that Gotleib with his 17.5 inch in dark skies gets 2687 and a few others. Maybe a group for Owen to add to the Web society galaxy of the month?

Turns out the red shifts of 2686 and 7 are around 16000 so about 700 million light years out. So if that's all right it is my furthest galaxy spotted to date..

When this high pressure comes in after Christmas give it a go.

Mark

 

[John]

Great report Mark

Congrats on pushing the distance out as well !

[Mark at Beaufort]

Great report Mark. Yes I am hoping for that clear spell after Christmas because I am still trying to view IC 1613.

[estwing]

Will give this a try thanks for the report Mark,clear skies