February Sky & Tel article on extreme northern galaxies

[Steve Gottlieb]

For another observing project I have an article in the upcoming February issue of Sky & Telescope on galaxies within 5° of the north celestial pole. Here's the first and last page, showing a table of galaxies discussed in the article.
1933 1934

[wvreeven]

Interesting to see that the majority of the galaxies lie between RA 7h and 9h. I guess that's due to absorption in the Milky Way.


Clear skies.

[Ivan Maly]

It's an interesting group. I've only seen NGC 3172, J. Herschel's Polarissima Borealis.

[Steve Gottlieb]

Interesting to see that the majority of the galaxies lie between RA 7h and 9h. I guess that's due to absorption in the Milky Way.

Most galaxies in this region are part of the NGC 2276 group (https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/cgi-bin/objsearch?objname=LGG+145&extend=yes&hconst=73&omegam=0.27&omegav=0.73&corr_z=1&out_csys=Equatorial&out_equinox=J2000.0&obj_sort=RA+or+Longitude&of=pre_text&zv_breaker=30000.0&list_limit=5&img_stamp=YES) (also known as LGG 145). The redshift-based distance is ~100 million l.y.

[wvreeven]

Thanks for the clarification, Steve!

[Bill Weir]

It's an interesting group. I've only seen NGC 3172, J. Herschel's Polarissima Borealis.

You should give it a try Ivan it's a fun quest.

Good suggestion Steve in showing people there is more to be observed around the N Pole than people think. 4 years ago I did this with my 12.5" going as far south as 80 N. Over 5 nights I managed 50 galaxies although the last night was only needed to gather in the final 3. It was tough and like you suggest took a very detailed chart I cobbled together from Megastar. Many of the tiny faint ones took magnifications up to 500X.

These are the galaxies I observed.

Bill

[Steve Gottlieb]

Bill, excellent results with your 12.5"! Like you I used Megastar charts to chase down the toughies. I didn't feel comfortable, though, "endorsing" Megastar in the article – its hard to recommend purchasing a program that's basically unsupported and will likely have no future updating.

[kirankumar]

Thanks Steve for sharing this. I am in Kiruna, Sweden, will try to see them.

Clear Skies. :)

[hevelius]

PGC 17485 (Declination: 89 19 47 (https://sk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoznam_PGC_objektov_17001_%E2%80%93_18000))
http://www.zorya.co/object/26728
http://www.dreistein.nl/dso/UGC3211a.aspx

There is also PGC 3085872
http://www.scideveloper.com/Products/DSCN.txt
GX 38.49854 +89.64602 +0.00 +0.00 0 0 - 25.0 15.9 154 17.5 99.0 99.0 "PGC 3085872"="DSCN 359-2"
http://cdsportal.u-strasbg.fr/?target=PGC%203085872