New General Catalog Object Analysis

[RJ901]

At the intersection of boredom, astronomy and excel lies my analysis of the objects within the NGC (sorry if this is old news). I made these tables using the data from the NGC/IC Project. It may help in further organizing your observational data, or planning, it might not, but it's kind of neat to see the breakdown by objects within the catalog (and it was fun to put together). Let me know if you catch any errors and I can update!

-Rick

Some interesting findings:

1. I knew there were a bunch of galaxies in the NGC, just was not aware that 80% of all the existing, non-duplicate objects were galaxies
2. There are more Double Stars in the NGC than Planetary Nebulae
3. 7840 NGC entries, but only 5724 unique and existent objects (maybe 5723, depending on NGC 1990)
4. 234 Entries are duplicates (or triplicates)
5. The only duplicated entries are of galaxies
6. There are 82 entries for which objects do not actually exist
7. 83 is probably the real count if you say NGC 1990 does not exist
8. January-April is a great time for open clusters
9. June-August is a great time for globulars
10. Any month is a great month for galaxies
11. July and August are great for planetary nebulae
12. 257 NGC objects are stars, doubles stars or triple stars
13. Triples, Doubles and Single Stars are fairly evenly distributed across the catalog

Total Objects in the catalog by Type:

NGC Obect Type	# of NGC Entries	Duplicated Entries	# of Unique NGC Objects	% of Total	% of Existing Objects	Most Entries by Type within One NGC Range (Ex: 1-999 or 3000-3999)	NGC Range with Most Objects by Type	NGC Range with Second Most	Count of the Second Most Entries by Type
Gxy	6271	234	6037	79.4%	80.2%	890	4000-4999	5000-5999	875
OC	678	0	678	8.9%	9.0%	245	2000-2999	1000-1999	154
GC	142	0	142	1.9%	1.9%	73	6000-6999	1000-1999	30
Star	115	0	115	1.5%	1.5%	23	1-999	4000-4999	18
Neb	111	0	111	1.5%	1.5%	47	2000-2999	1000-1999	31
Double Star	106	0	106	1.4%	1.4%	17	6000-6999	1-999	13
PN	98	0	98	1.3%	1.3%	49	6000-6999	2000-2999	14
OC+Neb	89	0	89	1.2%	1.2%	44	1000-1999	2000-2999	17
Ast	69	0	69	0.9%	0.9%	19	6000-6999	2000-2999	18
Triple Star	36	0	36	0.5%	0.5%	9	2000-2999	1-999	3
GxyCld	22	0	22	0.3%	0.3%	11	5000-5999	1-999	0
MWSC	8	0	8	0.1%	0.1%	8	6000-6999	N/A	0
SNR	6	0	6	0.1%	0.1%	5	6000-6999	1000-1999	1
HIIRgn	6	0	6	0.1%	0.1%	3	4000-4999	3000-3999	2
Neb?*	1	0	1	0.0%	0.0%	1	1000-1999	N/A	0
Nonexistent	82	0	0	1.1%	----	19	1000-1999	7000-7840	17
Total	7840	234	7524

Neb? *refers to NGC 1990

Objects by Type and Position within the Catalog:

NGC Number	Galaxy	Galaxy Cloud	Nebula	Questionable Nebula	Open Cluster and Nebula	Open Cluster	Globular Cluster	Planetary Nebula	Super Nova Remant	HII Region	Milky Way Star Cloud	Triple Star	Double Star	Star	Asterism	Nonexistent
1-999	834	6	4	0	12	49	8	4	0	0	0	6	16	23	5	8
1000-1999	646	0	31	1	44	154	30	4	1	0	0	3	13	13	10	19
2000-2999	596	4	47	0	17	245	5	14	0	1	0	9	12	17	18	8
3000-3999	873	1	8	0	2	21	1	7	0	2	0	3	15	10	0	7
4000-4999	890	0	0	0	0	12	5	2	0	3	0	2	5	18	3	7
5000-5999	875	11	1	0	0	28	15	7	0	0	0	2	14	11	2	5
6000-6999	634	0	15	0	12	120	73	49	5	0	8	6	17	6	19	11
7000-7840	689	0	5	0	2	49	5	11	0	0	0	5	14	17	12	17
Total	6037	22	111	1	89	678	142	98	6	6	8	36	106	115	69	82

 

[Hungrymark]

That's interesting, thanks. I bought Bratton's Herschel Objects book and was similarly staggered by quite how many of them are galaxies.

[RJ901]

On 3/8/2018 at 16:38, Hungrymark said:

That's interesting, thanks. I bought Bratton's Herschel Objects book and was similarly staggered by quite how many of them are galaxies.

It’s crazy, and makes me want to move to darkest wilds to be able to see all of the faint ones, but the wife will have none of that!

[Hungrymark]

It makes sense, when I think about it. Daft really. Of all the universe that is visible from here, of course the most visible objects are those massive things with billions if stars in them, but even so, blimey...

[Demonperformer]

If you are interested in the NGC, this link contains a ton of data. And (at the risk of blowing my own trumpet) you may be interested in this.

[Pondus]

Some Nice Excel work there. Once all those galaxies were considered to be nebulas within the milky way .

I`m not quite sure how this structure will help me organising data (personal honest opinion ), to me its more of a fun fact overview.

 

As of Your conclusions :

I think Your findings are more suitable for observeres living far more South than those of us living in the Northern part of Europe:

On ‎06‎.‎03‎.‎2018 at 20:54, RJ901 said:

• June-August is a great time for globulars
• Any month is a great month for galaxies
• July and August are great for planetary nebulae

For me May, June and first 2/3 of August is only decent for planets and some doubles. The 'night' sky is Incredible Bright.

On ‎06‎.‎03‎.‎2018 at 20:54, RJ901 said:

January-April is a great time for open clusters

In general open clusters (not referring to NGC OC`s only) are quite evenly spread along the galactic equator so any season (Sep-Apr) is a good OC season.

For me anyways.

 

Just my thoughts. But you certainly have motivated me to pick up Excel as an astronomy tool again, so thank you for posting .

Regards

Rune

[estwing]

very interesting post, thanks for sharing...clear skies!

[RJ901]

On 3/10/2018 at 10:31, Pondus said:

more suitable for observeres living far more South than those of us living in the Northern part of Europe:

Great catch; I should have noted there would be a shift in time due to latitudinal differences. As a reference, I observe from 35.1N. Thanks!

[Paul M]

Fascinating analysis considering I'd never given the subject much thought!

Thanks for sharing your work.