There is no name for this galaxy as far as I know, but I discovered it on a sky ramble once with my 8" SCT just north of the constellation Cancer the crab. It was close to a little asterism in the shape of a kite. It sounds weird, but I thought of it as the crab-kite galaxy. I drew a lovely sketch of it, but now I have finally had the opportunity to take a piccy of it and even better, the picture shows a subtle texture detail. It is a lovely near edge-on galaxy, which always looks pleasing, with a subtle blue hint and other subtle splodges of colour towards the centre. There's even 2 little galaxies hiding near it! One of them being the 16.5 mag PGC 24945 (L). It's quite an overlooked galaxy because it's as bright as the brightest members of the Virgo cluster, but living isolated on the southern border of Lynx, it gets missed. It's surprisingly easy to find - just look for 'the kite' at the northern edge of Cancer, north of the star iota Cancri. It is 1ºN of sigma Cancri.
Friday, 22 January 2010
NGC 2683
There is no name for this galaxy as far as I know, but I discovered it on a sky ramble once with my 8" SCT just north of the constellation Cancer the crab. It was close to a little asterism in the shape of a kite. It sounds weird, but I thought of it as the crab-kite galaxy. I drew a lovely sketch of it, but now I have finally had the opportunity to take a piccy of it and even better, the picture shows a subtle texture detail. It is a lovely near edge-on galaxy, which always looks pleasing, with a subtle blue hint and other subtle splodges of colour towards the centre. There's even 2 little galaxies hiding near it! One of them being the 16.5 mag PGC 24945 (L). It's quite an overlooked galaxy because it's as bright as the brightest members of the Virgo cluster, but living isolated on the southern border of Lynx, it gets missed. It's surprisingly easy to find - just look for 'the kite' at the northern edge of Cancer, north of the star iota Cancri. It is 1ºN of sigma Cancri.
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