Cosmic "T" VII Zw 601

[Uwe Glahn]

Last days I visited an interesting galaxy pair which looks like a "T".

VII Zw 601 (CGCG 354-023, PGC 054756) at 15h20m36.60s +79d29m44.0s

Looks like a colliding pair with tails. I could only detect the two main bodies, not the faint tail to NW.

Is any observation out there? Perhaps an interesting target for many of us. LEDA listed 15,2bmag. I found this magnitude a little bit to optimistic. I estimate the whole glow around 16bmag. With 27" it was a direct vision object.

DSS 15'x15' blue
VIIZw601_15b.jpg

sketch: 27", 586x, NELM 6m5+, Seeing III

[Ivan Maly]

Interesting object.

[Jimi Lowrey]

Nice object Uwe!

My brief notes talk about the tidal tail and how long it is, I need to revisit it to check out the T shape.

[KidOrion]

Don't suppose there's any chance with a 12.5".

[Uwe Glahn]

Hi Thorleif,

with 15,2bmag or say 16bmag it should be no problem to detect as an object itself. The "T" shape could be difficult.

[akarsh]

Very interesting. Hopefully, I'll remember to give it a go next new moon.

[RolandosCY]

Although this object lies near the brighter part of the sky from my backyard observatory I did give it a go. Well, I could detect something at the correct position with my 18" at medium to high powers (275x). It appeared as a very faint longish streak but I could not really detect the "t" shape. Although we have had some great transparency, the seeing was not as good to allow higher magnifications. Now that we have good seeing we also got tons of dust in the atmosphere, so I guess I'll have to wait for a few weeks...

[skyraider]

So I observed PGC 54756 last night (evening of July 4th) to see if I could detect the "T". I made the following observation with my 25"f4 Obsession from a local dark sight, under average seeing and transparency conditions:

Pentax 7 XW, 7.0mm, 368x, 11.4'
Faint, but seen with direct vision, most of the time. Diffuse edge-on galaxy, fades evenly from center in both directions. Is at a 45* angle to the two stars closest to it, so I believe I'm seeing the "upright/vertical" part of the "T". I could not see anything that resembled the other galaxy to give it's "T" shape.
I'm looking forward to looking at this one again and from a darker sight.