Hereafter known as Kim's Object.
Just kidding. I'm sitting at my table printing charts when my wife walked by, looked at the computer screen, and asked what that was. I was on NGC 4222 at the time. She blurted out "5945", add that to your list". For reference my wife has a passing interest in astronomy: she Passes by me and loses Interest!
So I decided what the hey and entered "n5945" in Megastar. Here is what I got:
Ok. A bunch of blue ovals. But here is the same field with RealSky turned on:
Whole different ballgame! We now have a very interesting galaxy to hunt down.
From Steve Gottlieb's site:
Édouard Stephan discovered NGC 5945 = St. 11-35, along with NGC 5943, on 6 Jun 1877. A second observation was made on 5 Jun 1878. His published position was reduced on 12 Jun 1880 and matches UGC 9871. His first observation may have been on 4 Jun 1869, but his rough position was off by 9', so the identification isn't certain.
You may recognize the name as Mr. Stephan is probably most famous, at least in the amateur community, for discovering Stephan's Quintet. Presumably Stephan discovered N5945 using the Marseille Observatory 80cm (32") Foucalt built reflector. Stephan was director from 1864 to 1907. As a side note the 80cm reflector was the first to feature a glass base coated with a thin reflective metal.
From Gottlieb:
24" (7/28/16): at 260x; moderately bright and large, round, 1' diameter. Sharply concentrated with a very bright, very small nucleus. A faint bar extends ~N-S from the nucleus. A mag 14.5 star is superimposed on the NNE end and a fainter mag 15-15.5 is on the west side [20" from center]. In a group with NGC 5943 8.5' S, NGC 5934/5935 17' W and NGC 5947 15' SE.
I'll add this one to my TSP list!
NGC 5945
RA 15 29 45
DEC 42 55 07
MAG ~13
SIZE 3'x2'
Edited by Keith Rivich, 29 April 2023 - 03:05 PM.
