Hi !

Owen Brazell asked:

> perhaps you could elaborate on what the Heuchelheim Catalog of Galaxies is.
> Most of the known galaxies are included in the LEDA catalogue kept at Lyon
> observatory.

It happened on 9.9.99.
While I was packing my telescope into my car I fell across the thought:
"how about searching NGC 999 today ?"
Luckily this object was visible that day (it's close to M34). NGC 999
is not one of these lonely galaxies but comes in a kind of cluster.
I wasn't lonely, too, as another guy from the Astronomische
Arbeitsgemeinschaft Heuchelheim was observing as well.

We both made a short drawing of the area.

Hell, they didn't match at all !

Therefore we counted the galaxies and had one more bright object than
registered in the Deep Sky Field Guide. Okay, it was not moving, so no
comet.
At home I connected to the Internet and immediately found out, that
this galaxy was indeed a real object, equally bright to the NGC
objects of this field.
But I couldn't find no name for it in LEDA, NED and the like ! This
galaxy was not in any catalog to date !

Some days later we observed the surrounding of NGC 999 and found 5
more galaxies, which were much fainter, but not unusual faint.

The latest two galaxies I observed on the night from 7. to 8. April
this year (that sums up to polarlight, two anonymous galaxies and one
successful occultation of a star by 791 Ani within 24 hours. Not bad,
um?)

I will put this galaxies into a TDF and place it somewhere on:
www.aag-heuchelheim.de
(a site under construction; to date it is in german ...).

A key to that observation was Guide and it's Deep Sky features,
especially the use of DSS and TDF.

Happy Eastern!

Frank
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Homepage: http://www.frank-leiter.de/