Zwicky’s Pyramid

Zwicky’s Pyramid
8ZW423
RA
14 29 17
DEC
-03 09 06
Virgo
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Last night after everyone left from the Texas star party as usual the skies cleared. I had one of the best night of seeing that I can remember for a long time. I have had on my list 8ZW423 (Zwicky’s Pyramid) for a long time Steve Gottlieb was observing with me and we were enjoying fantastic sky conditions.

When the object was near the meridian I slewed the 48” scope to its position and much to my surprise I could see the brighter members of the group with my 375X finder eyepiece. I then bumped up the power to 610X and all of the members were popping in and out like popcorn. I then went to 813X and it was rock solid seeing so I said what the heck let’s try 976X and WOW all of the members were direct vision. It looked like a tiny pyramid in the eyepiece. Needless to say Steve and I were excited :-)

Attachment 5142

The edge on galaxy has a Z=0.0816 with a light travel time of 1.08 billion light years