NGC 5466 (Mar. 25, 2017)

This globular cluster is about 52,000 light years away and appears in the constellation Bootes.  As globs go, this one is sparse.

A galaxy on the lower left (northwest) of the image is PGC 1840894, magnitude 17.70.  The larger galaxy at lower right is PGC 1835025, magnitude 17.37.

The most interesting thing (I thought) about this globular is that a galaxy glows through it.  At the lower right of the cluster, one glowing object is a smudge instead of a star.  It is about 25% of the way from the center of the cluster to PGC 1835025.  It is very faint.  I have no idea if it has a name. A Hubble shot of NGC 5466 (lower left in that version) shows that this smudge is actually a spiral galaxy in the far distant background.  Interestingly, the Hubble image also shows several other galaxies shining through that are not visible in my data.  You can see them if you zoom in and pan around.

This is 8x480" with the SXVF-H9 through the CFF Classical Cassegrain at f/7.93.

NGC 4088 (March 25, 2017)

This galaxy is between 40 and 60 million light years distant and appears in the constellation Ursa Major.  It has an unusual shape (one arm seems to be pointing the wrong way) and so is listed in the Arp catalog as well (#018).  It is probably a member of the same group as M109.  This is 9x900" with the SXVF-H9 through the CFF 290 Classical Cassegrain at f/7.93.  The galaxy to the lower right (southwest, actually) is PGC 38369.  North is left in this image.