Vern’s Weblog

About a degree north and west of the brightest star in Pegasus, Markab, is a nice galaxy triplet of NGC 7463, 7464, and 7465. NGC 7465 appears to be the brightest of the three and has a bright central core.

Celestron Nexstar11, Meade F3.3 focal reducer, and Astrovid Stellacam II was used to take the image from Louisville, CO on Sept 3, 2006 around 05:57 UT (just before midnight Sept 2). Temperature was 42°F, 77% humidity, sky was clear, transparency was good, and turbulence about 5/10.

Seyfert’s Sextet (Hickson 79) located in the constellation Serpens is one of the densest known galaxy groups.  Four of the galaxies are believed to be interacting  (NGC 6027, and NGC 6027a-c). Component “d” is not part of a group, it is further distant and just happens to be in line of sight. Component “e” is thought to be a tidal tail thrown out from gravitational interaction.

Images taken from Louisville, CO June 26, 2006 at 11:59 MDT with Celestron Nexstar11, F3.3 focal reducer, and Astrovid Stellacam II video camera. Camera settings: integrate 128, gain 9/14, medium gamma. Images were dark subtracted, flat field and bias corrected with ImagePlus. Aligned and stacked 150 images with Registax3. Brightness enhanced with ImagePlus, cropped with Photoshop Elements. Sky was clear, temperature 57°F, transparency very good, turbulence 6/10.

I recently received the “Galaxy Groups and Clusters” book from the Astroleague and decided to try imaging some of the listed objects. Below is an image of NGC 5171 in constellation Virgo. There are at least 9, probably more galaxies shown in the image which I’ve identified 7.

Location Louisville, CO, time 11:45 to 0:015 MDT. Weather clear, temperature 57°F, humidty 60%, no wind, clear sky, transparency very good, turbulence good (6/10). Equipment used was a Celestron Nexstar11, Meade F3.3 focal reducer, and Astrovid Stellacam II video camera. Integration at 256, gamma at medium and gain at 9/14. Fifteen minutes of video was dark subtracted, flat field and bias corrected. Aligned and stacked with Registax3, brightness enhanced with ImagePlus, cropped and labeled with Photoshop Elements2.

NGC 6621 and NGC 6622 (Arp 81) are a strongly interacting pair of galaxies in the constellation Draco. The tidal arm extending up and to the left of NGC 6622 is just barely visible in the below image. Image was taken on May 21, 2006 at 01:53 am MDT with Celestron Nexstar11 telescope, Meade F3.3 focal reducer, and Astrovid Stellcam2 video camera. Temperature was 59°F, sky clear, transparency very good, no wind, location Lousiville, CO.

Located 20 arc-minutes east of M86 in the constellation Virgo is a pair of galaxies known as “the eyes”. According to the Chandra website, it is thought that these galaxies had a glancing collision about 100 million years ago. Both galaxies appear elognated in the NNE to SSW direction.

Image taken with Celestron Nexstar 11, Meade F3.3 focal reducer. and Astrovid Stellacam II video camera. Integration set at 256 (8.5 second exposure), gain 9/14, and medium gamma. Images flat field, dark subtracted, and bias adjusted, 20 minute stack. Sky was clear, transparency was very good, turbulence fair 5/10, no wind, and temperature was 57 °F.