Object of the Week June 5th, 2016 - NGC 4236

[Dragan]

NGC4236
UGC7306

Draco

Galaxy

RA 12 16 43.3
DEC 69 27 47

Mag 10.1

Size 22.0' x 7.2'

Class SB(s)dm

Discovered by William Herschel on April 6th , 1793, NGC4236 is a large, diffuse barred spiral galaxy located in Draco. Spanning 22' by 7' minutes, don't let the apparent magnitude of 10 fool you. With its large surface area, this galaxy can definitely be a challenging object depending on scope size and sky conditions. One observing tip about this object is that "mo power isn't necessarily mo better". This is an object where lower power is definitely your friend.

My last observation were made with my 25" May of 2015. I noted:
Best view at 185x. NW-SE elongation. Faint and diffuse with brighter core region running length of the galaxy. Star within a few minutes of the core.
With AV, steady mottling throughout with a brightest patch at the SE end.

Though I don't usually write the most detailed notes of my observations, I did notice i made mention of a bright patch at the SE end of the galaxy. During my research for this weeks OOTW, I discovered that Fritz Zwicky had incorrectly mislabeled this star forming region of NGC4236 as an entirely different galaxy. Or did he? Megastar labels this patch as a galaxy but other online sources label it as an HII region. Can someone chime in?

"Give it a go and let us know!"

N4236.jpg
©Bernhard Hubl