UGC 3816 - this may be a first

[wimvb]

We had quite unexpectedly a few hours relatively cloud free this night and I pointed my scope at a small group of galaxies in Lynx. I found this group by accident on Aladin, where it looked like there was a bridge between two of them.

90 minutes imaging time confirmed this bridge. This image consists of 31 3 minutes exposures with an L filter in front of my ASI294MM. As usual mounted on my SW 190MN.

The central pair of galaxies is UGC 3816 and MCG+10-11-033. Both are leniticular galaxies about 170 MLy distant in the constellation Lynx. Both galaxies are also smaller than the Milky Way; they each have a diameter of approximately 35 000 - 55 000 ly.

To the lower left of the connected pair is UGC 3828, a barred spiral galaxy which belongs to the same group of galaxies. This galaxy is at about the same distance and about the same size as the others

Below and in line with UGC 3816 / MCG+11-10-033 is the edge on galaxy MCG+11-10-036, which is about 600 - 700 MLy distant. This galaxy is also much larger than the others, approximately the same size as the Andromeda galaxy.

I haven't been able to find any amateur images of this group, and only one or two images from professional telescopes. UGC 3816 was the subject of a study about globular clusters, a year ago. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2104.00672.pdf

Coming galaxy season I will collect more data (including colour), and try to show the bridge better.

Inverted image showing the bridge between UGC 3816 and MCG+11-10-033

[alan potts]

Great piece of work, not the the sort of thing we normally try which is what I like about your work, always something different. Must mount up my M/N 190mm, never going to be in your class but I can at least see what I get.

Alan

[wimvb]

3 hours ago, alan potts said:

Great piece of work, not the the sort of thing we normally try which is what I like about your work, always something different. Must mount up my M/N 190mm, never going to be in your class but I can at least see what I get.

Alan

Thanks, Alan. Glad you like it. I think you should definitely start collecting photons with your 190MN.

[AstroMuni]

11 hours ago, wimvb said:

We had quite unexpectedly a few hours relatively cloud free this night and I pointed my scope at a small group of galaxies in Lynx. I found this group by accident on Aladin, where it looked like there was a bridge between two of them.

Great find. Looking forward to seeing more images of this Wim.

[wimvb]

3 hours ago, AstroMuni said:

Great find. Looking forward to seeing more images of this Wim.

Thank you. Glad you like it. I certainly hope I can show more. But that will most likely be a project for galaxy season.

[symmetal]

Thanks for posting Wim. Very good for 90 mins. 🙂 Always interesting looking around the less familiar subjects. I wonder if the few smaller and fainter galaxies also visible have designations.🤔

Alan

[wimvb]

54 minutes ago, symmetal said:

I wonder if the few smaller and fainter galaxies also visible have designations.🤔

Thanks, Alan. Much appreciated. I'm sure many don't have a catalogue number yet. In my image of And XXX, there were several that didn't. And besides, those that do, often have "2MASX" + ra and dec coordinates. In the best of circumstances, those that do will have an entry in the NASA Extragalactic Database.