Arp 113 galaxy group

Galaxy Group
Andromeda
RA 00 18.37
DEC +30 04.0

MAG 13.3 (NGC 71) to 14.8 (NGC’s 67 and 69)

I came across this wonderful galaxy group for the first time on December 10, 2009 with my 28 inch f4 Newtonian. It was a cold, transparent night, the SQM read 21.32 and I used 408x for my observation and sketch:

Arp113_VV166_crop_annotated.jpg Arp 113_VV 166_crop_invert.jpg

“Reminiscent of Stephan’s Quintet, only it’s better in that there are nine galaxies here! A beautiful group that was as much fun to look at as they were to sketch.”

The trio of NGC 68, 70 and 71 forms the bright, triangular focus of the group, and may be what Arp considered as the 113th entry in his catalog – they certainly seem that way in his Palomar 5 meter image.

big_arp113_HaltonArp_Caltech.jpg

The distorted spiral NGC 70 and the elliptical galaxies NGC’s 68 and 71 make up this bright sub-group, but all three appeared much the same to me, each with a bright, nearly star-like core.

The remaining galaxies of this group are strung out in a ragged line from the three galaxies mentioned above, with NGC 69 appearing as the brightest in this line.

I’m looking forward to observing this group again on a better night to try and see the distorted spiral arms of NGC 70 and the central bar of NGC 72, along with a handful of fainter galaxies that may or may not be a physical part of this group. This wonderful image from Adam Block and the Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona shows a bunch of fainter targets to look for.

N70s-crop_Adam Block_Mount Lemmon SkyCenter_University of Arizona_rotated.jpg

List of data for all this group’s members at: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/VV_166

"GIVE IT A GO AND LET US KNOW"