VV 790b Orions ring

[Jimi Lowrey]

Early this morning I had the best view ever of the unusual ring galaxy VV 790b AKA II ZW 28. I have seen it many times over the years but this mornings view is something I will not soon forget!

VV 790 b is a collisional ring galaxy in Orion that is thought to be in the act of collision. I could see the brighting in the inner ring that is thought to be the colliding galaxy. I was using 697X and 813X and the stars were pin points. The brighter ring sections looked mottled in the eyepiece and faint smaller ring was direct vision and the void in the center was jet black. The galaxy looked to be much brighter on this night than the 15.5 MAG that it is listed at. (There is nothing like great seeing)

Eyepiece drawing
969

HST image
970

[Uwe Glahn]

Wow,

now I'm back to normal, thanks Jimi. Very funny, I had this object on my list but don't find it, because I noted VV 790 (which is the very faint ring Arp 146) and not VV 790b. Holy s...

The observation is great Jimi, now because I know what I wanted to do I have to give it a try. You hear from me :)

[Astrojensen]

Wow, what an object! I must definitely try it this winter.


Clear skies!
Thomas, Denmark

[Steve Gottlieb]

I observed II Zw 28 earlier this year (9 March) using my 24-inch. SQM-L readings that night were 21.5-21.6. I didn't use high power to see if any signs of the ring structure could be detected, but it was a fun object to look for. The PGC mentioned in my notes is listed in Megastar as MAC 0502+0331

At 282x this Ring galaxy appeared fairly faint, small, round, 20" diameter, broad concentration with no core or zones. Located 6' NE of HD 32191. A 24" pair of mag 13.3 stars is 1' S and a mag 12/14 pair (about half the separation) is 1.6' S. PGC 75258, a Seyfert 1 galaxy discovered in 1982 by the orbiting Einstein X-ray telescope, is located 7' ESE

[skyraider]

So I'm trying to add this galaxy to my "Next Observing Session" list in Skytools3. VV790B and II ZW 28 yield no results. When I use the star and PGC Galaxy in Steve's post and look nearby them in the interactive atlas, I still can't find it. Any other ideas for catalog names that might yield results in the Skytools3 data base.

[Steve Gottlieb]

II Zw 28 is also known as PGC 16572. Give that a try. It's also possible that searching on "2 ZW 28" would work -- I don't know offhand how SkyTools names the Zwicky compacts.

[Jim Chandler]

SkyTools currently doesn't have the Zwicky designations. I normally use the PGC numbers to find them the first time, then add the Zwicky number in a Notes Headline, so that the Zwicky number pops up tooltip-style when the cursor passes over the object in a list.

Jim

[Uwe Glahn]

Last new moon period I had the chance to catch ring galaxy.

With the 27" and 586x the N region was bright enough to see it with direct vision as a 1:2 E-W elongated ring fragment. The ring itself was visible as a faint glow which follows the brighter part to the S. In moments of good seeing I could see a short hook from the E end of the brighter part towards the ring part. I could not see a darker middle or closed S side.

27", 586x, NELM 6m5+, Seeing III
http://www.deepsky-visuell.de/Zeichnungen/VV790b.jpg