SHAKHABAZIAN COMPACT GALAXY GROUPS

[Bill S]

Impressive capture especially during a period of no true astronomical darkness.

Bill

[Martin Meredith]

That's a great-looking group. I wonder how accurate the distances are? Perhaps at that distance 50 million LYs is within the range of error. Having said that, the group does look bimodal in terms of brightness.

Martin

[Mike JW]

Good point about the accuracies at that distance.

Mike

[Mike JW]

August 3rd.  SHK 361 lies in Pegasus and has 10 members. However in this shot there are other galaxies captured as well. SHK 361 sits within Abell 2524.

Mike

 

[Martin Meredith]

That's a lovely grouping. The surrounding star field seems to have formed a circular window thru which to view SHK 361.

[Mike JW]

Hi Martin,

I had not fully appreciated the artistic side of this shot. You are quite right the way  the surrounding stars frame the SHK group.

Mike

[Martin Meredith]

Here's SHK 332 in Aquarius from last night, first as a 'wide' field (0.44 degrees across!) for the usual spot-the-Shakhbazian competition, and then zoomed in

This is a line of 5 mag 18.5 to 19.1 galaxies within less than an arcminute, with a slightly brighter one (m 17.8) off to the side and a further member on the line. I've also marked a mag 20.0 (B filter) galaxy (PGC 96884) below the group. Not a lot more to say about this group apart from its aesthetic merits as a near-chain!

Martin

 

[Mike JW]

Hi Martin,

Always a challenge to spot the SHK group as the view comes onto the screen. The offset galaxy; Aladin seems to suggest it is a pair of galaxies, distance 1.226 GYr.

Mike

[Martin Meredith]

Thanks Mike. Here's another similarly-compact one acquired nearby: SHK 331. This one has 7 listed members but I can only see 6. Aladin shows an additional 2 tiny faint galaxies but I suspect these are not members of the group as originally listed by Shakhbazian. Mags range from 16.3 to 18.7.

[Mike JW]

Hi Martin,

I have put these onto my list for tomorrow night - a bit  low down for me but I will give it a go.

Mike

[Mike JW]

SHK 331                                                                                                                 SHK 332

 

and a new one SHK 333

Mike

[Mike JW]

and here is four more from Aquarius.

SHK 334                                                                                                                   SHK 302 - there is meant to be 9 in the group but I cannot locate it! They are 1.1/1.2 billion lyrs away.

SHK 301 - tonight's mystery! Absolutely nothing there. NED locates 301 to           SHK 303 - So close to the bright star that I missed it at first.

the same place but shows no galaxy group!!!!

[Mike JW]

It has been a while since we had a SHK.

SHK 142 in Pisces. This group of 10 galaxies is a good example of a spread out SHK galaxy group. As is often the case when the first sub comes in, I wonder if I have located the group - see the first sub below. Initially I thought it was in the centre towards the top of the shot

As the subs stack, all is revealed.

and here is the close up.

Mike

 

[Mike JW]

and here is another SHK in Pisces - SHK 365 - a linear grouping.

Mike

[Martin Meredith]

Just checked my observations and I've not seen either of these. You've managed to resolve some interesting detail in the individual members, especially member 6 of SHK 365 and member 8 of SHK 142. BTW I'd always believed that the numbers were ordered by decreasing magnitude but that doesn't appear to be true for the 365 group.

[Mike JW]

Hi Martin,

I am glad you have drawn my attention to '6' in 365 - looking at NED, this galaxy would appear to be a spiral tilted towards us and hence I seem to have got a hint of the spiral nature. NED gave no details for the galaxies in 365, so no idea of distance or magnitudes.

'8' in 142 - NED gives no clues.

Mike