Dec. 28, 2008 was clear and steady but I could only use the early half of the night to image. I had to head back to Boca early the next morning so I chose an object, galaxy NGC891 (link below), near the meridian just after twilight for 6 hours of total exposure to the west ending about 1AM. The luminance data is 1X1 and color 2X2 with the RC and STL-11K camera. My favorite shot of this object is by Adam Block with the 24-inch RC atop Mt. Lemmon. I did capture some detail and by chance also caught a tiny Arp-like (interacting) galaxy complex in the same field as NGC891, probably part of Abell Galaxy Cluster 347. The largest galaxy in the attached close-up is PGC9101 at mag. 16.3 and 35 arcseconds in diameter. All of its spiral arms are swayed in one direction. And there is a knot within those arms which seems to me to be too big to be a stellar association within that galaxy. Perhaps it is a distant galaxy shining through the distorted arms of PGC9101?? There is another smaller galaxy to the right of PGC9101 which seems to have a tidal tail projecting opposite of PGC9101. Perhaps these two are interacting?? This is not in the Arp Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies; this probably escaped Arp’s attention because it was too subtle on Palomar’s plates. There are 3 tiny dots next to PGC9101 immediately to its right. Are these quasars, faint stars (unlikely) or (I favor) star condensations (H-alpha knots) from a distorted arm of PGC9101? Food for thought.
http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/NGC891text.html – Info on NGC891