NGC 5673 and IC 1029 are two neighboring galaxies in the constellations Boötes - but which galaxy is which? There was much confusion over the discovery and naming of these two DSOs, involving astronomers Sir William Herschel, his son John Herschel, J.L.E. Dreyer, and Guillaume Bigourdan. While the galaxies do not offer much detail, even with telescopes much larger than my little refractor, the story of their historic confusion is worth reading. Rather than paraphrasing, I will refer you to an amusing JRASC article from 1999, in which the author (M. Bratton) postulates who probably discovered which galaxy.
https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1999JRASC..93..146BYou may also wish to read Rick Johnson's opinion of who might have discovered which galaxy on mantrapskies.com:
Rick Johnson - Mantrap SkiesRick's 14" SCT did not capture much more detail than my pathetic little 100 mm Esprit, so I feel somewhat vindicated.
The galaxy identified as NGC 5673 in this image (
if that's it's real name...
) is a barred spiral galaxy possibly of type SBc of magnitude 12.9 and spans only 2.4' x 0.6'.
The galaxy identified as IC 1029 is of type SAb or possibly Sb and spans 2.5' x 0.5', shining at a visual magnitude of about 11.4, though TheSKyX lists it as 12.9. Perhaps the database developers confused the two galaxies too?
In the lower right corner, the small spiral galaxy of about 16th magnitude is MCG+08-26-040.
This image is the fourth and final installment of my March-April imaging project, which focused on a single, wide field of view in Bootes that contained nine NGC galaxies and two IC galaxies, plus a host of other, fainter targets. None of these galaxies are frequently imaged, as most of us spend our time on the brighter, more famous DSOs and neglect our inner scientific and historical curiosity. They may not be spectacular targets, but they surely provide some relief from repeated imaging of the familiar targets.
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