Grus Triplet (Summer 2018)

I've been saving this data till I could look at it again with a better eye.  This data comes from an observatory in Australia.

These three galaxies appear in the constellation Grus (the crane).   They are, from upper left to lower right, NGC 7582, 7590, and 7599.  The trio and one other companion, NGC 7552 (off the top of this frame), lie about 60 million light years distant.  The quartet is gravitationally interactive, and these three show tidal effects from each other's pull.  https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf/2005/01/aagi011.pdf.  One tidal tail stretches almost all the way from NGC 7582 to NGC 7590, but the tail is too dim and the wrong part of the spectrum to appear in this image.

NGC 4302 (Hubble Legacy Archives), May 3, 2000

 

This image is from data in the Hubble Legacy Archives.  These are single exposures from the space telescope at three different wavelengths (with the F450W, F555W, and F814W filters), combined to create an RGB file.

NGC 4302 is about 55 million light years away and appears in the constellation Coma Berenices.  The boxy center of the galaxy suggests a central bar.  NGC 4302 is a Seyfert galaxy.

NGC 4302 appears next to NGC 4298, another galaxy, and at least one study has shown a bridge of radio emission moving between them, evidence of some interaction.

Elephant Trunk, IC 1396A (Summer 2020)

This dark cloud floats in front of a field of glowing hydrogen (red). 

This is 31x900" through the Synta-ONTC 203mm f/4.95 Newtonian and an Astronomik CLS filter with the Atik 460EXC.

Palomar 4 (April-May 2020)

Palomar 4 is fascinating—a very distant globular cluster of stars orbiting the Milky Way far outside our galaxy, 356,000 light years from us.

At that distance, the stars of Palomar 4 are very dim, from magnitude 17.9 down to magnitude 28.  Please note, however, that the two brightest stars in my image of the cluster stand out.  I noticed that the brighter of the two seemed much brighter than when I imaged the cluster in 2009, https://polarisb.blogspot.com/2009/03/palomar-4-final.html.  The star seemed so much brighter that I believed it must be variable.  I checked with the AAVSO, the world's experts on variable star light curves, and yes, both the two brightest stars in my image are variables.  Thanks to Brian Skiff and Sebastian Otero:
https://www.aavso.org/vsx/index.php?view=detail.top&oid=380883
https://www.aavso.org/vsx/index.php?view=detail.top&oid=380882

The cluster is relatively sparse as globs go.  See this deep image from the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey telescope, a 4m scope.

The whole cluster has less than 30,000 solar masses.  See https://arxiv.org/pdf/1205.2693.pdf.  This study also contains a color magnitude diagram that shows the cluster's star magnitudes.  Even the 4m scope attached to the DECam only reaches those as bright as mag 23 or 24.

In addition to Palomar 4, the image contains some deep galaxies.  To the right is PGC 1855809, mag 17.92 and 330 million light years away. Above that, and very dim, is PGC 1856336, mag 17.97, 2.2 billion light years away, and 167,000 light years wide.

To the left of Pal 4 is PGC 1846998, mag 16.18 and 330 million light years away.

Bottom left is PGC 1845035, at mag 17.69, 2.1 billion light years away.  The galaxy must be huge, 250,000 light years across. Another galaxy smudge, just left of PGC 1846998, is at the same distance.  It is a small smudge on my image, almost starlike.  It is called PGC 1846201 and at 2.1 billion light years is probably 150,000 light years across.

There are other galaxies in the image, but I did not identify them.

This is 11x900" with the 203mm Synta-ONTC Newtonian at f/4.95 and the Atik 460EXC.

M92 (July 2020)

M92 is about 27,000 light years away, about 16,000 light years above the plane of the galaxy and 33,000 light years from the galaxy's center.

One estimate I read said M92 may have 330,000 solar masses.

The galaxy in the lower right is PGC 59984, mag 15.21 and 390 million light years away.  The dimmest stars in the image are less than mag 19.

This is 8x600" with the Atik 460EXC through my 203mm f/4.95 Synta-ONTC Newtonian.  Frankly, I was waiting for another target to clear the trees, but this turned into an interesting project.

M8 (Spring 2019)

Amazing data from Martin Pugh's observatory in Australia: 17CDK, SBIG 11000M.

M27 (June 2020)

This is 13x900" from the suburbs with the 203mm Synta-ONTC Newtonian at f/4.95 and the Atik 460EXC.