[ngcles]

Hi Mental & All,

Apologies in advance for the pedantry, but Stephan does not have a Sextet, instead he has a Quintet -- it is in Pegasus not far from the bright eg NGC 7331.

The Sextet is Seyfert's -- Seyfert's Sextet in Serpens (nice bit of alliteration there).

I can confirm it is visible as a common merged halo, June 2000 31cm at x186:

Pretty challenging. All 6 share a common halo which is in shape a mirror reversed inverted "L". C is the most obviously detached, as a tiny elongated patch of haze which seems to grow to the axis, 20' x 10". 2 others appear as enhancements or condensations within the merged halo, -27A which is just N of "c" as the middle of the shank of the "L". E is also a separate extension within the halo.

So go for it.

NGC 6027D (of Hickson 79E) is not an actual component of the cluster but far in the background (contrary to the wiki article). Its R/V (+19,800 Km/sec -- odd) indicates a distance out around the 900 million ly mark and it is one of the most distant normal eg visible in moderate-sized amateur instruments. It is seen resolved as separate from the "L" shaped merged halo in 46cm at x317.

As for AGC 2065, at least 1 member of this remote cluster at about the 1.1 billion ly mark is an extreme threshold object (and I mean it!!) in 31cm at moderate/high magnification under a high quality rural sky:

PGC 54876: x186 26' TF. Mag 15.1 Size 0.4' This is a very, very difficult observation. Found - there is a line of *s in roughly PA 45 from the N mag 12, 13, 13.5 *s from NE-SW. Middle * is displaced to the SW from centre. From that * in PA 60, 2.5' distant is a threshold dot only 10" diameter which is very occasionally visible about 4x in 5 mins of observation. Only very occasionally wafts into view for a couple of seconds, 80% certain. G Mitchell confirms.

This eg PGC 54876 is 1.3 arcmins in PA 72 from GSC 2031:972 at mag 11.1. Strangely, I haven't been back to revisit this cluster with 46cm. Maybe I'll do so at the end of the month. That magnitude for PGC 54876 is a true V magnitude and no dinky (B) or (P) (IR), (Z) some other form of rubbery guesstimate. Any extended object (even though only 10" diameter) at V mag 15.1 for 31cm is an extremely tough target unless you have super-eyes (which I don't).

Oh and BTW ... How many pedants are needed to change a light-bulb?

A: None, pedants replace light-bulbs.


Best,

Les D