Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Pegasus (Peg)  ·  Contains:  PGC 1461898  ·  PGC 1465155  ·  PGC 1465353  ·  PGC 1466821  ·  PGC 1468898  ·  PGC 214961  ·  PGC 71538  ·  PGC 71549  ·  PGC 86513
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UGC12613 Pegasus Dwarf Irregular, lowenthalm
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UGC12613 Pegasus Dwarf Irregular

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging
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UGC12613 Pegasus Dwarf Irregular, lowenthalm
Powered byPixInsight

UGC12613 Pegasus Dwarf Irregular

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

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Description

The Pegasus Dwarf Irregular imaged here is a distant galaxy within our Local Group of Galaxies beyond both M33 and M31. Its similar to Barnard's galaxy, but twice as far away. Recent attempts to measure its distance using different methods put it at either 3.162 or 3.945 million light years. Although listed as 5 arc minutes across, here you can trace the faint edges out to about 5 by 10 arc minutes, putting the size at roughly 8000 light years. Its about 12.5 total magnitude (V), but because of its size has quite low surface brightness. The latest data can be found in SIMBAD:

http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=NAME%20Peg%20Dwarf%20Irregular%20Galaxy&NbIdent=1

On the night I captured this image (along with several other local-group targers), the seeing wasn't good enough for imaging at bin 1x1, but it was good enough to show a lot of detail at bin 2x2 (1 arc second per pixel) with some brighter stars resolved. I was at a dark sky site too, so a fairly deep image was possible with a limiting magnitude of around 22 in this image. That fuzzy knot just below center makes me think globular cluster. However, an HST image of the galaxy appears to resolve this as an exceptionally dense star cluster that seems to straddle the definitions of star cloud/open cluster and globular cluster. You can see the HST data in the CDS Portal here:

http://cdsportal.u-strasbg.fr/?target=Peg%20Dwarf%20Irregular%20Galaxy
Look be sure to check All HiPS in the Image Data section and it will should include HST data in the list of images available.

A lot of surrounding fuzzy knots are distant galaxies. For example that little spiral to the left is 16th magnitude PGC 214961, with a redshift of z= 0.06900, which puts it at roughly 930 million light years. The distant elliptical off the bottom edge of the nearer irregular is 16th magnitude PGC 71549, with no redshift or distant data available . The tiny faint and no doubt distant face-on spiral just off the upper right edge of the 18th magnitude galaxy (near that double yellow stars) is listed in the SDSS catalog as SDSS J232817.48+144509.2 with no redshift data yet available.

That bright blue star near the upper end of the galaxy is a bit of a mystery. Gaia parallax data shows some measurable parallax, but the error is larger than the measurement, so I suspect it is really quite distant. With the data available, its difficult to even tell if this is in our own galaxy or in this distant irregular! Its listed as in SIMBAD as "GALEX 2665051267632466271" and classified as a "Blue Object". Very helpful! The latest data on it can be found here if some new discoveries about its nature are made:

http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=GALEX%202665051267632466271&NbIdent=1

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