Identifying faint fuzzies

[evil_yoda]

Hi all,

Hopefully this is the right place for this....

Last night was the first time I got to play around with my new ASI1600MM-C.  I didn't actually get round to imaging any particular target, just trying to get a feel for the camera etc.

Anyway. I took a few frames of a random area of the sky somewhere in the direction of M31, and when reviewing the images this morning I noticed a very faint fuzzy. It showed up on more than one frame.
Just for fun I thought I'd try and track down what it was. I uploaded to astrometry.net to find the location but that didn't tell me what any of the star names or objects were.
I then used Pixinsight's AnnotateImage which gave me the star names, but didn't label the object.

Assuming it's actually a real object, is there a better way of finding out what it is? It would be interesting to know what these things are that show up in our images sometimes!

It's the very faint splodge in the centre of the attached image, just above TYC2853-331-1, also maybe there's another smaller fuzzy just below TYC2853-925-1

Cheers, Matt

[mikeyscope]

Hi Matt

I'm sure most will tell you they use a similar annotation option in Maxim... I don't have Maxim so just go straight here...

http://cds.u-strasbg.fr/

I use Simbad mostly but various search options at top of that page for referencing if you can at least identify some stars then there's not usually a problem.

I may be wrong but looking at your image it looks like your faint fuzzy (mag 14.7) is the beautiful face on barred spiral galaxy UGC 2227

 

Mike

[mikeyscope]

Here's a screen grab from using Aladin from same website, I orientated the image to match your image field.

 

[steppenwolf]

This galaxy is PGC10457 which as Mike says is also known as UGC2227 amongst several other catalogue entries.

You were so close to finding this for yourself! If you add the PGC Hyperleda 1 catalogue to your search criteria in the Image Annotation Script in PI, it will find and name this galaxy for you - you can then do a cross-reference to see what else it is catalogued as.

[Stub Mandrel]

And another one an inch to the left of your galaxy. Also in Mike pic, I see.

[steppenwolf]

11 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

And another one an inch to the left of your galaxy. Also in Mike pic, I see.

Indeed and there are even more in there!

[evil_yoda]

Thanks for all your help guys.  Amazing to think how many galaxies are there in such a small area of the sky.
Maybe pointing the scope at a random part of the sky and trying to identify them might become a new hobby

I'll try and add some more catalogues to PI for the future. I think I'm going to like the new camera coming from the DSLR.

Matt

[coatesg]

You can always use Aladin to browse the same area of sky and do the identification that way (loading the Simbad objects layer over the image). 

See also my post somewhere in here on generating and using custom catalogues in PI.

[evil_yoda]

3 hours ago, coatesg said:

You can always use Aladin to browse the same area of sky and do the identification that way (loading the Simbad objects layer over the image). 

See also my post somewhere in here on generating and using custom catalogues in PI.

Just downloaded Aladin. Looks like a good bit of software. Lot's of scope for exploration there.
I'll have a look for your post regarding PI catalogues later.

Thanks, Matt