Antenna galaxies with the nearby phantom

[MelBartels]

Next to the Antenna Galaxies is a wonderful galaxy that looks like one of the antenna galaxies but sans antenna - a phantom. Just a slight nudge back and forth centers one then the other. It's a really pretty view.

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M96 has a faint ring and within the ring is this embedded galaxy that presents as a slightly brighter elongation.

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Mel Bartels

[Uwe Glahn]

Wow Mel, what a huge field around the Antenna's. Beside the whole tidal tails, you captured a hidden treasure - NGC 4027. The Galaxies around the known showpieces are often a rich playground for nice objects.

The tidal tails of the Antennas are nearly impossible to see from southern Germany (~48°N). And with the 28-inch f/4.4 at the top of Gamsberg/Namibia the field was way to small to capture the tidal tails.
I also found an old sketch of NGC 4027 with 16-inch. It suffers also from the low position in the sky from here.

sketch NGC 4038/4039: 28", 446x-624x, Seeing III, Nelm 7m5+
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home (http://www.deepsky-visuell.de/Zeichnungen/NGC4038_NGC4039_28.htm)

sketch NGC 4027: 16", 257x, Seeing II, Nelm 6m5+
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home (http://www.deepsky-visuell.de/Zeichnungen/NGC4027.htm)

And yes, M 96 has an interesting field of companions around. Highlight of course the embedded PGC 3760438 in the NE part of the outer ring. I guess you need at last some aperture for that. I could not spot the galaxy with my former 16-inch.

sketch M 96: 27", 172x-293x, Seeing III, Nelm 7m0+
4727
home (http://www.deepsky-visuell.de/Zeichnungen/M96_27.htm)

[Don Pensack]

Here is an image of M96 with the edge-on galaxy behind the spiral arm
Note that several more distant galaxies can be seen through M96, but I doubt these would be visual objects.
https://www.learnastronomyhq.com/articles/messier-96---deep-space.html

[akarsh]

Jimi and I looked at NGC 4027 and NGC 4027A through his 48" last month. We had moderate transparency (presumably due to smoke from Mexico) and poor seeing.

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NGC 4027 had too much detail for my novice sketching skills, showing starbursts and knots all over. NGC 4027A appeared distinctly triangular. As I note in the sketch (although in poor wording), the knot on the NW corner of the galaxy was sensed as a brighter side of the triangle, and could not be resolved as a stellaring per se.

I hadn't heard of NGC 4027A until Jimi pointed it out to me.