January 18, 2008

NGC2903



I was delighted to get this image, but I have several questions about it. To aid in asking them, I have posted a key. Neither reduction on this page does the image justice. For a clearer view, please click on either. The clicked-on, non-key version is less damaged by digital interpolation.

The large galaxy in this image is NGC 2903, in Leo. There are three and maybe four other galaxies in the photo, also. I was delighted to see these only after the data was processed. The (apparently) next largest galaxy is UGC 5806 or PGC 27115. It is the smudge near the bottom of the image. It is called a dwarf galaxy in some papers. A few call it a satellite of 2903, but the distances to these galaxies vary as reported. The distance estimates I have seen for both would at least put them in the same group.

Three more galaxies are to the right of 2903. One is PGC 1648681. I find this galaxy very interesting. Not in my image but in other images (here, a slow-loading link, as are the next two links) this galaxy appears to have a central bar and spiral structure, much like NGC 2903. Can dwarf galaxies have such a shape? If not, then is this galaxy far in the background? How far?

Further up in the top right corner of the image is another smudge that is PGC 1647510. Lower and a little to the right of PGC 1648681 is another shape that I have been unable to identify. But I have seen it on the deeper images that I have found on the web (here), and it looks galactic in them to me. It does not form a stellar shape in my image, as I see it. I would be interested in others' opinion of what it is.

Just below that is an apparently moving object. There is nothing that bright there and nothing that shape in any other image that I have seen (for instance, here). This is about 26 minutes worth of consecutive images. Whatever it is appears to have moved that much in that amount of time. How would I find out what it is?

As usual, this image is a DSI Pro set gathered through the Vixen R135S, unguided on the LXD75.

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