The Neighborhood of M77
By Shawn Grant
Cetus the whale is often the most ignored and neglected constellation in the sky. It doesn't have any bright stars and the shape is not readily apparent. The deep sky objects within the borders of this constellation isn't well known either. There are a multitude of galaxies some faint and surprisingly many of them bright. Cetus also contains a bright and fine planetary nebula NGC 246. One of the most interesting things one will encounter is the variable star Mira. This star ranges from 3.39 magnitude all the way down to 7.03 in a period of 333.8 days. To the naked eye sometimes it is there and sometimes it is not. That is probably why they call this star the Wonderful One.
Many of us have seen the peculiar face on spiral galaxy M77 but many of us did not know that there are several nice galaxies just a few degrees away. Our first stop is the star d Cet. This is a slight variable that varies from 3.99 to 4.02 every 0.16 days.
Just a half a degree to the east of d Cet is the galaxy NGC 1055. This is a large edge on spiral with an angular diameter of 8' X 4'. It is magnitude 11.6 but it has a very low surface brightness. The galaxy has a dust lane running along the equatorial region but due to the sky conditions I did not see this but there has been many others who have seen it.
Just a half a degree to the southeast we come to M77. M77 is a seyfert galaxy, which means it has a bright and highly active core. Astronomers believe a seyfertgalaxy is somewhere between a galaxy and a quasar. This is bright with a magnitude of 8.9. It is even in brightness and has a high surface brightness. It is a tight face on spiral. I did not see any spiral arms and with photographs the spiral structure isn't obvious. The size of the galaxy is 9' X 8' making the galaxy almost round. It sort of looks like a very bright and large planetary nebula.
47' to the south-southwest is a fine double 84 Cet. The first component is magnitude 5.8 and the
second is 9.0. They are 4" apart with a position angle of 310 degrees. This is a lovely pair of yellow and red stars.
About a degree to the east of M77 we come to a dim galaxy NGC 1090. This galaxy has a magnitude of 12 and its size is 3.8' X 1.8'. It is elongated and even in brightness. This galaxy appears faint due to its low surface brightness. NGC 1090 has had a recent history of supernova. In 1962 one of 18th magnitude was found and in 1971 one of 16th was found. Keep your eye and CCD cameras on this one.
Those of you with moderate sized telescopes about 11' east of NGC 1090 is a 13.4 magnitude galaxy NGC 1094. It is pretty small about 1.4' X 1.2'. It is round and the center is slightly brighter.
About 12' to the south of NGC 1090 is an 11.3 magnitude galaxy NGC 1087. This is a face on spiral with a fairly high surface brightness. The center is much brighter and the galaxy is mostly round but a little elongated. In 1995 a 15th magnitude supernova was found in this galaxy.
Move 2.2 degrees to the south-southwest from d Cet to the 6th magnitude star 74 Cet. A degree to the west of 74 Cet is the galaxy NGC 936. This is a face on barred spiral galaxy with a bright magnitude of 10.1. It is large with a size of 5.2' X 4.4'. It is round and has a bright barred core and some spiral structure was seen. While you are at NGC 936 don't forget to look at NGC 941 and NGC 955.
I just scratched the surface of this area. There is a whole lot more galaxies in the area. Just 1.7 degrees to the north-northwest of d Cet is a cluster of galaxies. There are 10 to 12 galaxies all within an area of 30' with NGC 1016 is the brightness of these at magnitude of 12.6. Those of you with larger telescopes and CCD cameras there are hundreds of galaxies within a few degrees of M77. We gaze at the beautiful galaxy M77 and fail to realize this fact. This article gives just a sampling of the many sights in the neglected constellation of Cetus. So go out and explore and tell me what you see because sharing our observations is what makes astronomy a wonderful hobby.
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