Object of the Week, May 29, 2022 – NGC 6070 & Friends
Object of the Week, May 29, 2022 – NGC 6070 = UGC 10230 = PGC 57345 - SERPENS CAPUT
R.A.: 16h09m58.9s Dec.: +00°42'34" (2000)
Size: 3.2' x 1.7'
Magnitude: 12.40 B - Surface brightness 22.3 Mag/arcsec²
NGC 6070 is a gorgeous type C spiral galaxy in Serpens Caput, about 100 million light-years distant, presented to us about midway between face-on and edge-on. It was discovered by William Herschel on May 3, 1786.
While doing my Google due diligence about this object I learned a little trivia that I had not previously known, which is that back in 1998 NGC 6070 was the object chosen by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey for it first-light test sky images!
… which explores Giant HII Regions in this galaxy (and also in the wonderful NGC 7479). According to the photos in this paper, the 2 of the HII regions correspond to the 2 obviously blue star-like objects on the NE end of the galaxy! I’ll need to revisit this guy and see if they are visible in my 25” f5 Obsession tomorrow night… if the predicted wind fails to appear…
This galaxy is almost exactly twice as long as it is wide, oriented NE-SW and has arms that disappear near the center on photos. This is a very photogenic galaxy! In the eyepiece I can see a fairly bright core and just a hint of an arm on the east side… but this was before I knew about the HII regions!
NGC 6070 has a couple of companions, those being NGC 6070B and NGC 6070C, both off the NE end of NGC 6070. Check out this labeled photo taken by the late Rick Johnson, which makes them easy to locate…
NGC 6070B (CGCG 023-018) is actually a double object and is very faint. I saw some elongation here but no split was attained by me. NGC 6070C (PGC 1175364) is *really* faint and I only suspected that I saw it… and I’m sure you have all been there and done that
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