Arp peculiar galaxies - anyone observed any?

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

Hi folks,

Just wondering if anyone has had any experience with observing some of the Arp peculiar galaxies?

The brightest of these happens to be Centaurus A, which most familiar to us. Happens to be one of the most southerly ones too.

Has anyone attempted to knock over as many of these as observable in amateur scopes? How about photograph them?

Paddy has written a review on the book The Arp Atlas on Peculiar Galaxies. Good review too.

[Paddy (Patrick)]

I was tracking done the brighter ones and there are quite a few visible from our skies. I plan to go back for more now that I use Uranometria as the charts are so comprehensive. A lot of them can be found using the charts in the book as well. I found that lots of them have peculiarities that are not observable visually. There is a nice lot of colliders though.

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

Has there been some sort of "extension" to this list to include the whole of the southern sky?

[madbadgalaxyman (Robert)]

ALEX,

Arp extended his work into the Southern Hemisphere with "A Catalogue of Southern Peculiar Galaxies and Associations" by Arp and Madore. It is sometimes known as the Arp-Madore catalogue, or just the AM catalog

See this website:

http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/S...as/frames.html


best regards,
bad galaxy man

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by mental4astro

Has anyone attempted to knock over as many of these as observable in amateur scopes? How about photograph them?

I haven't imaged too many Arp galaxies. The astrophotographic challenge in bringing out the faint extensions that are associated with many Arp galaxies makes them interesting objects.

Here is an example.

Arp 245.
http://users.westconnect.com.au/~sjastro/arp245c.html

Regards

Steven

[alocky (Andrew lockwood)]

I've just about observed all of the ones visible from Perth. Some of them were quite tricky in the 25" and took a fair bit of patience to see. The book the OP refers to is the one that inspired me to ensure I had a few on the observing list every night. Some of them are very well known objects - for example Seyfert's Sextet, the Antennae, and many more...
Harlton Arp is still active on campus in La Jolla (well, last time I was there!), at the University of California San Diego campus, and despite the controversy surrounding his early career is still willing to take on postgrads! Can't recommend the book highly enough for an excellent description of his career.

regards,
Andrew

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

Originally Posted by madbadgalaxyman

See this website:

http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/S...as/frames.html

What a site! Should keep me busy for a weekend...

[pgc hunter]

Interesting indeed. My favourite targets are galaxies and these objects look like a fun challenge. Thanks for posting those links, will be definately be adding these to my obs list next clear sky. I've got the PGC2009 catalogue on Cartes Du Ciel with 1.5 million galaxies plotted, plus MSA and Tri-Atlas C series hard copy so got the resources to get started! Now, all I need is some clear skies...

[madbadgalaxyman (Robert)]

pgc hunter, it looks like you will be hunting for a lot of PGC objects.....
I am not currently in my prime for visual observation, but I am inspired by the sense that you are "as keen as mustard" to get out and view these objects!

For those of you who are not into obscure galaxy catalogues, I note that the dreaded AM (arp-madore) catalogue numbers are sometimes a problem, as this is not the major identification used for most fairly-bright galaxies.

The NED website should (I think) allow searches for object information, by putting in AM catalogue number, and it will give the cross-references to other catalogues. (//ned.ipac.caltech.edu)

[astroron (Ron)]

I purchased TAOPG about four years ago, and for about eighteen months went through the constellation that I could observe from here using the book and charts provided.
I haven't done any for a long time but this thread has piqued my interest all over again
Thanks Alex and all
I am in the process of getting the southern volume.
You can buy it from a number of places and at various prices
See here .

http://booko.com.au/products/9780521330862

Now all as Sab said is a clear sky to get up and going again
A big thank you to Robert for all his stirling work on galaxies
Cheers

[ausastronomer (John Bambury)]

Good Morning all,

Andrew Murrell and I started going through the Arp galaxies together a few years ago in the 25" Obsession. As Andrew Lockwood mentions some of them are a tough get in a 25" telescope and I doubt you could do them all in anything much smaller. We didnt get all that far into the list because the scope had to go back to Peter Read at SDM telescopes for some running repairs and I subsequently moved to Kiama which means the only chance I get to observe with Andrew Murrell these days is when we head up to Coonababrabran for a week each year, or at IISAC or some other Star Party and we are doing other things at those events.

What takes the time is that most of these targets are not listed in the Computer software databases and you need to use finder charts and starhop. My new house in Kiama has pretty decent skies in my yard (Mag 6+). I am on 3/4 of an acre on the top of a hill, 1km out of town, with trees all around the property. I have a poor view of all horizons because of the trees, but I have 360 degree access to anything above 30 degrees elevation which works beautifully for me, as I always try to set my program to observe targets in the 45 degree to 80 degree altitude range.

Once I get the new house sorted out I am hoping to set up a list of all the Southern Arp galaxies for uploading as a user defined catalogue to Argo Navis. My largest scope is only an 18", and I will see how many I can get in that scope using the Argo. Once I have the list made up I would be happy to share it with other Argo users.

Cheers,
John B

[xstream (John)]

Here's a list of Arp galaxies by Bob Hill from the Yahoo Argo Users Group.

[ausastronomer (John Bambury)]

Thanks John,

That saves me some work.

Cheers,
John B

[xstream (John)]

Originally Posted by ausastronomer

Thanks John,

That saves me some work.

Cheers,
John B

[xstream (John)]

When time permits Anna and I had been working our way through what is observable here in the Southern Hemisphere from that list.

Central Queensland also has very dark skies Mag 6.5+ and in the 18" there are some very tough targets indeed, certainly is a lot of fun trying to eyeball them!