Physical Details

This is an LRGB image of NGC 1961 (Arp 184, IC 2133, UGC 3334) and vicinity in Camelopardalis. It is a Peculiar Galaxy of Type SAB(rs)c, Magnitude 11, and size 4.6' x 3.0'. From Annals of the Deep Sky, vol. 3, its deformities are thought to be a product of a head-on collision with another galaxy followed by a minor merger. Many of the features of this galaxy are visible in my image with the exception of thin arms splayed arms that are only partially visible to the N (upwards) here. The entry goes on to describe some simulations that may describe the interaction that resulted in this peculiar appearance. The SkyAtlas 2000.0 Companion, 2nd ed., places it at distance 180 Mly.

Background galaxies of note include UGC 3342 (PGC17692), seen nearly edge-on on the lower left of the image, about 67.8Mpc distance, Magnitude 15.2. Upper middle is a near face on spiral (I think) 2MASX J05432302+6925516 (PGC17659), Magnitude 14.8, approx. 58MPc distance. I found no information on the object just to the lower left of this one. Another at bottom center is 2MFGC 4635 (PGC17642), Magnitude 15.6, approx. 55MPc distance.

More information available in:

Annals, vol. 3, p. 68

Arp Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, p. 118 & 120

Sky Atlas 2000.0 Companion, 2nd ed., p 89

Wikipedia page - nice monochrome Hubble picture

CDS Portal

Acquisition & Processing Details

There are several issues with this image, not the least of which is a lack of desired integration time in all channels. This was my first target of the night during a recent imaging session where the main targets were NGC 2841 and M63. While waiting for NGC 2841 to rise high enough in the East to get away from air traffic, I imaged this scene over several nights with the hopes that I could spot many interesting things to research later. I was not disappointed in the number of objects to annotate and learn about, however the lack of adequate integration time means a noisy, difficult image. Time permitting I will try to acquire some more of this one.

As a consequence of lack of integration time, the background is horrible in this image, and I decided not to push the black level any harder and just own up to it. Stay tuned for an update either soon or next year and likely this background noise will go away the natural way with more stacking.

As another consequence of the lack of integration time, I decided to not spend a whole lot of time processing this image and decided to go for more noise reduction and stronger color saturation than usual just to make it more interesting. You are not required to "like" this image, of course, but I'm sure you'll at least appreciate my interest in the objects shown as well as plans to add more imaging time later.

EDIT: I included some earlier data to this set, so this final image is a mix of frames from my QSI 683 and FLI ML16200 cameras. The combination turned out to be better than the individual products of the separate data sets, however much of my earlier comments remain valid. I used only about 25% of the available data in order to be as selective as possible with the FWHM, trying to keep it at 2" or less. This time around the colors came out a bit bluer than I like. At some future time I may reprocess this, perhaps adding even more data. The ML16200 data also suffered from a vibration issue that I hope will be resolved once I use it with my new, larger AP 1100GTO mount.

Thanks for your attention, and your comments and suggestions are always welcome!