Quote:
Originally Posted by ngcles
Once you get past about 13th magnitude, it's a bit like the "Pirate's Code" -- its more like a guide, and galaxy magnitudes (generally speaking) begin to get seriously rubbery once you pass about mag 14.5.
The problem lies with (1) Most faint galaxies haven't been photometrically measured and (2) the way the magnitude is measured or calculated and at _what wavelength_.
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Thanks for this explanation, Les!
It finally clears up an 8 year old mystery - when we accidentally stumbled upon UGC2902 in Per with my 8" Newt, admittedly from a very dark site in the Philippines, where we were living at the time (and amongst other things, in control of the street lighting...
)
We had little access to resources, but what we could find was different magnitudes ranging from 14-ish to 15.9, but all beyond my scope's 'limit'... And yet it was unmistakable as it forms an almost equilateral triangle with two 8-ish mag stars, and there isn't all that much else to be found in that FoV... We were never able to repeat the feat, as the skies there may be dark but rarely completely free of haze.
When I read your post I went back to our observation records, and now I'm finally convinced we didn't see a phantom: peace of mind...
