Vorontsov-Velyaminov interacting galaxies

[Martin Meredith]

Thanks Mike. So this is the Taffy pair? In that case I viewed it some years ago -- doh! I will dig out my old capture if I can find it 😉 

Martin

[Bill S]

Ah yes, I thought that rang a bell. Something I had a bit of a look at last year.

 

I seem to recall I was prompted to have a look by a picture posted here by another observer.

Some more information:

https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Heavenly+taffy%3a+galaxies+in+collision.+(This+Week).-a0104730234

I also had to look up what taffy is. It's a type of American candy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taffy_(candy)

Best regards

Bill

 

 

[Mike JW]

8/10/20. My attempt from last night using the 15. A little bit more detail but not significantly more. Achieved quicker of course with that amount of aperture. Tweaked a bit in photoshop.

Mike

[Bill S]

VV 894 is the NGC 128 galaxy group in Pisces. NGC 128 is a lenticular S0 galaxy interacting with its neighbours NGC 127 and 130 and probably NGC 126.

 

 

NGC 128 was discovered by John Herschel on Christmas Day 1790. That's commitment for you. Don't waste a clear night!

The NGC 128 group is the Webb Seep Sky Society's Galaxy of the Month for October 2020.

Further details are on the WDSS website:

https://www.webbdeepsky.com/galaxies/2020/

 

Clear skies

Bill

 

 

 

[Mike JW]

Always like a group of galaxies = plenty to enjoy and find out about. Mike

[Mike JW]

VV 1985 in Pegasus is classified as 'N' (multiple) - you could fool me on this one! but take a look at the close up shot and all is revealed or is it?

Close up -  to the right of the main nucleus is a hint of a second nucleus so this would make it a pair in contact (PK) or pair coalescence (PC) but to be classed as 'N' there needs to be a third member but I cannot spot it.

VV 1987 - this is also a multiple and faint. It is the faint grey fuzz in the centre - only in high resolution images can the components be identified. My close up does not help either. However look over to the right and there lurks a galactic mess - MCG 3-60-7 - Irr (totally agree that it is seriously irregular) - see my close up - could be three galaxies doing a close dance, certainly two.

 

Mike

[Mike JW]

12/01/21 - Some VV galaxies in Triangulum

VV 1027 (NGC 931) - a fine sight. It is PK - pair in contact. A big contrast in galaxy size. NGC 931 is 150,000 lyrs across and a Sbc spiral. Hints of star forming regions but also some faint foreground stars trying to get in on the act.

VV 1014 are an interacting pair but I cannot see any evidence of this.

Finally VV 636 - Supposedly three or more members (Classified as N). My first reaction as the imaged appeared was where is it? and then 'you must be joking' - only one galaxy! until I zoomed in.

The zoomed in shot clearly shows two galaxies and I wonder if the 'N' classification is because the star was thought to be a galaxy?

 

Quite a few more VV galaxies in Triangulum to explore.

Mike

 

 

[Bill S]

A few days ago had a look at VV 85 in Perseus.

A closer in view makes it a little easier to see the components.

The main component is NGC 1129. I found the labelled picture below which labels this galaxy and surrounding ones, including NGC 1130.

 

Surprisingly a paper by Vorontsov-Velyaminov et al (or more accurately completed in his memory, I suspect, since it was published 6 years after his death) seems to list VV 85 as consisting of NGC 1129 and 1130 as a pair. 

See: http://images.astronet.ru/pubd/2008/09/28/0001230678/717-959.pdf

Other references do not seem to include  NGC 1130.

The picture reproduced by Alvin Huey in his VV Catalog Part 1 describes VV 85 as consisting of four components close to NGC 1129 but not the more separated NGC 1130. Two components (a and b) are galaxies, with a being MCG+7-7-4, NGC 1129, UGC 2373 and b being MCG+7-7-3 . c and d are stars.

 

VV 85 is about 239 Mly away.

As so often I've spent more time looking up information and thinking about an object I've observed than I spent observing it.

Cheers

Bill

 

 

 

 

[Mike JW]

11 hours ago, Bill S said:

As so often I've spent more time looking up information and thinking about an object I've observed than I spent observing it.

That is the pleasure of the hobby. Too easy to take a quick look/image.....As with all of life the more you look, the more you see, the more you read the more you learn........

NGC 1129 appears to have an elongated core in your close up - I assume that must be a processing quirk. 

Enjoyed the post.

Mike

[Mike JW]

3/02/21. 10.30pm to 1am.

Did I really want to venture outside in close to freezing conditions, get all the equipment out, level, align and wreck a night’s sleep?

Below is my answer.

Ten VV galaxies in Leo

VV 1364 a pair of spirals distant from each other but connected by a bridge of stars – classification PDb and at mag 17 and tiny but still be able to pick up the bridge was a real thrill. Scrutinising Aladin, the circled fuzz in the close is a compact galaxy group – no other info.

 

VV 396 slightly brighter at mag 15 but still tiny and the classification of N suggests three members. Looks to me that there is one brighter one and two fainter ones of unknown structure, mag 18. The brighter galaxy would appear to have an extension toward the smaller galaxy pair.

 

VV 1372 – another difficult mag 15 and tiny target. This time it is a pair of ellipticals in contact – PK. Are they really in contact or is this a line of sight. Then there is that extra bit of fuzz extending out from the lower galaxy – evidence of the pair interacting?

VV 755 confused me at first because I could not decide which galaxies belonged to ‘755’. It turns out it is the lower galaxy but the classification is NPNP. Now NP means nest of galaxies with a close pair so NPNP means two nests with close pairs. The upper nest is VV 393.

The close up was a second sequence of subs but this time with no binning to try to get a tighter, better resolved shot. In this one all is revealed VV 755 actually in Aladin shows big fuzz + close fainter pair and a galaxy to the left and also one further out on the right – a nest of 5? Actually there could be 6 because tight to the big fuzz is another suspicious patch of fuzz on the left.

VV 393 looks likely to be a nest of three but the big fuzz has an interesting extension (it is not noise) going off to the left.

 

VV 1377 – now these are easier to pick despite being mag 15 – they are bigger. We get a new classification for the session – PDt = distant pair with a tail. This confuses me because it looks like  two galaxies each with a tail that joins (= a bridge?) and then there is the obvious fuzz extension below the upper galaxy. NED data indicates a group of galaxies for VV 1377 and this fuzz extension could well be another galaxy(s). Distance to the group is about 340 million lyrs.

 

VV 514 immediately confused me; which one is it? Looking at the VV data base (I have this open online when chasing VV galaxies). I discovered the classification is ‘Ch’ = a galaxy chain. Thus VV 514 is the right hand fuzz -a curving line of three galaxies and the bigger one (NGC 3349 – a face on spiral, 76000 lyrs diameter) to the right. VV 529 is the right hand galaxy.

The large and more immediately interesting galaxy is VV 529 – NGC 3356, a loosely wound spiral, 140000 lyrs across and classified in the VV catalogue as N (3 galaxies) – my close up shot (not binned and a separate stack of subs) clearly reveals a fuzz below it on the apparent galaxy edge and the second companion is the fuzz above the core and slightly left. Pleased also to be picking up some of the spiral structure in NGC 3356.

 

VV 801 – is one of those comet galaxies (classified as K). It looks to have two cores – interaction of two galaxies? Simbad suggests there could be four galaxies in this giant comet. 

 

VV 1386 is also a N classification – another galactic mess up of three galaxies.

I crawled back into bed, cold, mentally buzzing with the sights I had seen and very satisfied. Looking up these galaxies and pondering what I have imaged is particularly rewarding.

Mike

 

 

[Martin Meredith]

Thanks for the write-up. There are some fascinating examples in there. I particularly like 529, 801 and 1386 for their strangeness. In the case of VV 529 it would be interesting to know if those satellites are indeed galaxies or just very large structures in the main galaxy. Looking on Aladin it seems that one of them is a galaxy (chance line up?) while the other looks stellar to me.

The VV catalogue throws up a lot of surprises. I checked if I'd observed any of these, finding that I have 5 recent observations of VVs in Leo, but no overlaps. Then I saw that there are 125 VVs in Leo alone, so plenty more to look at.

Martin

[Mike JW]

VV 1529 in Draco was the highlight of the five VV galaxies in Draco that I looked at last night.

VV 1529 is the spiral beauty (NGC 4319) on the left but I just had to include the elliptical  of NGC 4291.  VV classifies NGC 4319 as PD? (distant pair). Charts show a second galaxy MKN 205 just below the barred core (where the obvious star? is) so hence the PD? notation.

Now for a spot of galaxy classification!! NGC 4319 is given by Skytools 4 as SBab - I agree with the barred galaxy notation but surely there is an inner ring, thus SB(r)ab is more accurate and is the correct morphological designation. It also has an active galaxy nucleus so the full designation could read as SB(r)ab, AGN. NGC 4319 is 80 million lyrs away and its supposed partner is in fact a Quasar at 1 billion lyrs away and in my shot it is the star that I mentioned earlier. In a paper from back in 1983 the article shows conclusively how MKN and 4319 were linked by a trail of luminosity (stars) - how wrong they were but of course they lacked the technological gear that we now possess.  

NGC 4219 is given the E3 designation (not perfectly spherical), and is a candidate for being AGN. It is about 86 million lyrs away. and may well have interacted with NGC 4319 at some point causing some of the disruption to the structure of 4319.

There is even more to excite in this shot. Just to the left of the NGC 4319 inner ring is a tiny fuzz spot (a LEDA gx - mag 18). Close to the right hand side of the fov is another mag 18 LEDA gx.

Edited March 12, 2021 by Mike JW

[Martin Meredith]

Beautiful shot and very interesting description, thanks. I'd agree it looks like it has a ring so a classic case of a SB(r) and a late one given those far flung arms. I imagine you've checked that the bright spot is not a supernova 😉 

If I get a chance I'd like to look at this tonight or tomorrow.

Martin

 

[Martin Meredith]

Managed to observe this field last night. First, a 'wide' (well, 0.44 degrees) field shot that also captures the lenticular galaxy NGC 4386.

Then a close up. I stretched this to bring out the lower arm, which wraps around and fades out. The elliptical is blindingly bright when viewed like this.

I let this run for a bit as there was a lot to see. Diameter info appears wrong -- will look into it.

This was one of the several highlights of a night where I was fortunate enough to be able to observe nearly 30 objects -- mainly galaxies -- in a 4 hour session.

cheers

Martin

[Mike JW]

Hi Martin,

Glad you were able to visit this area. I have just been comparing your view (8") versus  my view (15") - very little difference except on the time it takes to get this view.

Mike

[Mike JW]

VV 267, UGC 6073, (Arp 198).  In my pursuit of the VV galaxies, I called up VV 267 in Leo and chuckled to myself as the image appeared - I immediately thought of a vegetable! - "The Cosmic Carrot"

This pair (PK, pair in contact) lie about 431 million lyrs away.

Mike

[Martin Meredith]

When I observed this I noted "like a microphone or an ice-cream cornet..."

A close in view shows a really interesting pair -- an edge-on plus a face-on spiral! Nice. I see the face-on in front of the edge-on. What do you reckon?

 

 

Just out of shot I spotted this little chain -- no details available:

Edited March 29, 2021 by Martin Meredith

[Martin Meredith]

Some beautiful examples of overlapping galaxies (including Arp 198) found by Galaxy Zoo volunteers and described here:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1211.6723.pdf

Yes, the edge-on is behind the face-on (type Q in the paper)

Martin

[Mike JW]

Hi Martin,

You did well picking up as much detail as you did. I was disappointed with my shot not to get a hint of the spiral structure. See Aladin screen shot below. I agree that it looks very much like a face on spiral.

I fancy another thread for overlapping galaxies!!! - some fine examples in your reference.

Mike

 

[Martin Meredith]

I've made up a list of 1989 overlapping galaxies here. The object type is OG for ease of search... You will need to refer to the paper for what the type codes mean. Just drop it into your catalogues folder. (This means they will also get picked up when annotating)

Enjoy! Talking of which, we have a clear night but the sky is full of supended sand -- again! It never seems to coincide with the moon.

Martin

overlapping_j.csv 

[Martin Meredith]

I thought on a thread dedicated to the VV catalogue it would be a shame not to include the first one in the list:

This is also Arp 85.

This one is not oriented N as that would place NGC 5195 right above M51 which looks ugly.

I've marked three objects that are in the Milliquas quasar/candidate catalogue.  The mag 17.1 one has a 66% probablity of being a quasar apparently but there is also a variable star with a 28-day period at the same location so who knows. The mag 19.2 quasar has a prob of 95% and is somewhat brighter in the red filter. The mag 20.7 quasar that I think is just about detected here has no red shift listed, has a prob of 80% and is again brighter in the red (mag 18.9) which is no doubt why I might have picked it up.

The bit of fuzz labelled IC 4278 apparently is 10 times further out than M51/NGC 5195. The unlabelled thin slash of a galaxy to its north (in this shot) is IC 4277 but I've not been able to find out much about it.

Martin

[Mike JW]

Martin that is a superb shot, no doubt due to the excellent sky conditions. The colour works well.

Mike

[Mike JW]

August 3rd. In complete contrast to Martin's excellent post above here is VV 1960 in Pegasus. The main galaxy is UGC 12288 (mag 13.8). Little is known about this pair.  UGC 12288 might be a spiral. It (they ) are about 318 million lyrs away.

Mike

 

 

 

[Mike JW]

Delphinus -VV102. I visited this pairing a year ago (see earlier in this thread). This a much better shot - more detail in this pair of spirals and the wider fov picks up a few more galaxies, including another galaxy pair in the lower part of the view.

[Martin Meredith]

Very nice "double double" of galaxy pairs. Gives a great sense of perspective. Looking at the DSS image on Aladin I see you've caught the semicircular loop joining the VV 102 pair.

Martin