Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Mensa (Men)  ·  Contains:  HD25254  ·  IC 2051  ·  PGC 13595  ·  PGC 13925  ·  PGC 14240  ·  PGC 220227  ·  PGC 220301  ·  PGC 220379  ·  PGC 220431  ·  PGC 220518  ·  PGC 220584  ·  PGC 2816396
IC2051 (plus unexpected bonus supernova), James Tickner
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IC2051 (plus unexpected bonus supernova)

IC2051 (plus unexpected bonus supernova), James Tickner
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IC2051 (plus unexpected bonus supernova)

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Description

IC2051 is an attractive spiral galaxy in the far southern constellation of Mensa. Although having an apparent size of just 1.7 x 2.9 min, it's reasonably bright with a magnitude of 12 and shows nice details in its arms and a distinctly yellow core. I believe this is also a first on astrobin object.

I deliberately framed the galaxy off-centre to capture some of fainter PGC galaxies in the same part of the sky. Upon reviewing the image, I was very excited to see an unexpected star near the centre of PGC14240, a lenticular galaxy lying near the bottom left of the frame. Had I discovered a new supernova? Sadly not, as I found it had been originally reported on May 3rd, 12 days before I snapped my image. Using ASTAP's photometric tools I estimate the brightness of the SN to be 16.0 (luminence filter).

Other objects of interest include the superposed galaxies PGC220301 and PGC13925 giving a rather confusing structure near the centre of the image, and the mag 15.6 spiral galaxy 13595 near the top right.

Last but not least is a faint mysterious object located at RA 04 00 41 DEC -83 57 16 (far left of image, about half way down). Simbad lists nothing at this location, but a similar faint blob appears at exactly this position in DSS. I have no idea what this is!

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IC2051 (plus unexpected bonus supernova), James Tickner

In these public groups

First on Astrobin

In these collections

80° South