Hi Robert, Ron & All,
Quote:
Originally Posted by astroron
I was one of the recipitents of your e-newsletter many moons back,  great to see you back with your different way of reporting galaxy information 
keep them coming 
Cheers |
Agree completely. I too was a subscriber and it was much enjoyed. Very glad to have you contributing here. For small nations (population wise), Australia and NZ pack a punch in both professional and amateur astronomy. There really are a substantial number of very talented and committed practitioners.
The dust lane in NGC 3628 does visually show some structure in moderate apertures at mod/high power. In my old 25cm at a pristine site at x276 you could see it was "crinkly". Also looks that way in 46cm in similar conditions at x247. Really is a quite underrated telescopic object.
Certainly looks to me like a merger-remnant eg; the snail-trail of molecular hydrogen (I've seen a 21cm map of it a few years ago in a paper I read), not to mention the huge tidal tail of stars (about a degree long in about PA 60) (in other words 500,000-odd ly long!!!) speaks loudly of fairly recent interaction.
Another one I've just remembered with a "boxy" bulge is another favourite (of mine) edge on spiral eg -- IC 2531 in Antlia. Love it! Dust-lane is visible in 50cm at high power in a dark sky. This is a very massive spiral 112 million ly away (infered from R/V of +2477km/sec) that is still 7 arc-mins long! (ie closing in on 200,000ly diameter). Seems to be no other eg in its immediate surroundings. May well be a field eg (ie "alone" in space).
Could *possibly* be related to the NGC 3100 group (almost 2 deg away south), though these eg have a slightly different R.V (what's +400km/sec between friends??) that argues likely non-membership of that group. (Though I haven't trawled through SIMBAD on this one yet (have I mentioned before how much I hate the SIMBAD interface??). May do it if I feel motivated enough tomorrow.
As Ron said, glad to have you!
Best,
Les D
Best,
Les D