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101 Arp Galaxies and the Leonid Meteor Shower
by Tim Hunter and James McGaha
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On the evening of November 16-17, 1998, the night of the
fabulous Leonid Meteor Shower of 1998, we decided to image 100
Arp galaxies in order to fulfill the requirements for the
Astronomical League's Arp Peculiar Galaxy Club. To receive a
club certificate, you must visually observe 100 Arp galaxies or
image 100 Arp galaxies with a CCD camera. There are a total of
338 Arp galaxies, and you are allowed to pick which 100 you want
to observe or image. We used the Apogee AP7 CCD camera for the
imaging and took exposures of 1 minute each through a clear
filter.
One of us (JM) controlled the computer and CCD camera while the
other (TBH) moved the telescope from object to object. We
compared our CCD images with the appropriate MegaStar chart for
each Arp galaxy to make certain we were imaging the correct
object. We found the various lists of Arp galaxies prepared by
Dennis Webb and available on his web page (http://members.aol.com/arpgalaxy/)
to be especially helpful. We imaged those galaxies that were on
the meridian, and as the evening progressed, we imaged all the
Arp galaxies in Pegasus, Pisces, Cetus, Fornax, Eridanus, Lepus,
Orion, Leo Minor, and Lynx. This took us from 8:15pm until
3:00am, and when we finished, we had a total of 101 Arp galaxies
imaged.
Then we shut down the telescope and relaxed on lawn chairs to
watch the Leonid Meteor Shower. It was spectacular. There were
bursts of meteors producing brief intervals with the equivalent
of an hourly rate of 1000 meteors per hour. Many of the meteors
were fireballs with long-lived trains stretching over a good
portion of the sky. Meteors could be seen radiating from Leo in
all directions. It was no meteor storm, but the best meteor
shower either of us had ever seen.
Most of the black and white images of
Arp
galaxies shown on the Grasslands web site were obtained as
part of our "Arp Marathon." The color images of selected Arp
galaxies were obtained at various other times. More
detailed information about Arp galaxies can be found in a
variety of sources, including MegaStar, The Sky, and
Dennis Webb's Arp Galaxy page. |
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Revised Saturday August 25, 2007 |
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