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NGC 2300 and NGC 2276 – Galaxy Pair in Cepheus – March 2019 Observer’s Challenge Objects

March Observer’s Challenge Complete Report:  Click on the following link:

MARCH 2019 OBSERVERS CHALLENGE – NGC-2300

Inverted color pencil sketch:  

Rogers NGC-2300 Inverted

NGC 2300 and NGC 2276 – Galaxies in Cepheus –  Date:  Wednesday, March 6th 2019 Telescope:  10-inch f/4.5 reflector – Sketch magnification:  183x – Eyepiece:  12.5 mm + 2x Barlow – FOV:  0.33º – 20 arc minutes – Conditions:  NELM ~5.0-5.2 

NGC 2300:  Bright, high surface brightness, brighter very concentrated nucleus, mostly round, but with a very subtle E-W elongation.  

NGC 2276:  Extremely difficult, mostly round, very low surface brightness, appearing only as a brightening in the sky.  Very even without concentration.  The glare from a magnitude 8.5 star located two arc minutes WSW of the galaxy, hinders the view.  Averted vision required.  The eyepiece view of this galaxy was far more illusive than my pencil sketch projection.  Roger Ivester 

Image and information by Mario Motta – 32-inch f/6 telescope 

NGC2300-2276

I fought some clouds late, and had to drop some subs, but got about 65 minutes total for this image.  

SBIG STL 1001B camera, five minute subs to keep the bright mag. 8.5 star, only a couple arc minutes away from blooming too much, with the 32-inch f/6 telescope, and then processed in PixInsight.  

NGC 2300 is mostly featureless as an elliptical, but I find NGC 2276 very interesting.  It has sharp arms that are chock full of H alpha knots it would appear.  

I wonder if NGC 2276 is a starburst galaxy?  Possibly by a close approach to 2300?  Such an interesting galaxy and image.  

Mario Motta from Massachusetts  

Supplemental Post: 

I  did a search and was right, concerning NGC 2276!  It is a starburst galaxy, see below:  A short abstract from Chandra observations.  Mario  

Abstract: 

The starbusting, nearby (D = 32.9 Mpc) spiral (Sc) galaxy NGC 2276 belongs to the sparse group dominated by the elliptical galaxy NGC 2300. NGC 2276 is a remarkable galaxy, as it displays a disturbed morphology at many wavelengths. This is possibly due to gravitational interaction with the central elliptical galaxy of the group. Previous ROSAT and XMM–Newton observations resulted in the detection of extended hot gas emission and of a single very bright (∼1041 erg s−1) ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) candidate. Here, we report on a study of the X-ray sources of NGC 2276 based on Chandra data taken in 2004. Chandra was able to resolve 16 sources, 8 of which are ULXs, and to reveal that the previous ULX candidate is actually composed of a few distinct objects. We construct the luminosity function of NGC 2276, which can be interpreted as dominated by high-mass X-ray binaries, and estimate the star formation rate (SFR) to be ∼5–15 M⊙ yr−1, consistent with the values derived from optical and infrared observations. By means of numerical simulations, we show that both ram pressure and viscous transfer effects are necessary to produce the distorted morphology and the high SFR observed in NGC 2276, while tidal interaction have a marginal effect.
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