Object of the week, Jan 17, 2021 - Arp 9, NGC 2523
Object of the Week, January 9, 2021 – Arp 9, NGC 2523
Barred spiral galaxy in Camelopardalis
RA: 08 15 00.2 Dec: +73 34 44
Size: 2.9 x 1.7’ Mag: 12.6b
Since I’m revising my Arp book, I’ve decided to pick one of objects on this list. For this week, NGC 2523 (Arp 9) is a pretty ring barred spiral galaxy in Camelopardalis. Arp picked this galaxy for his list for the split arm, which is on the north side.
I picked this object because of the beautiful ring structure in a barred spiral galaxy and would love to see this again with a large telescope with a Zeiss eyepiece. I’m pretty sure that I would pick it up with a 25” or larger telescope under very dark skies. As a bonus, there is a nice 14th mag edge on galaxy with a visible dust lane about 9’ east.
The last time I looked at this galaxy was more than 15 years ago with my 22” with Tak LE and Pentax XL eyepieces.
My notes are as follows:
22" @ 305, 327 and 458x - This is a nice barred spiral galaxy with a sharp stellar nucleus. The west arm pointing north is only faintly visible as a brightening of the edge. 2:1 elongated patch with a central bar perpendicular to the major axis of the halo. PA = 30 and about 2.5’ long. Bar is about 1’ long and PA = 120º. Did not detect the split, which is the north arm.
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