Hickson Galaxy Project

? Imaging the Hickson Galaxy Groups

The Faulkes team have asked BAS to help image all 100 Hickson Compact Galaxy Groups using the Faulkes Telescope. We have taken up the challenge , and so far members have identified 15 Hickson groups for imaging.

What to do

Bag your Group

Put your name on the list of Hickson Groups, against the one you would like to image.
Talk to other members who have their names against your selected group.


Arrange for Faulkes to image your group

Give the the following information to Mike preferably by email to mike.haynes1@btopenworld.co.uk

Hickson Number
Right ascension and declination 2000 coordinates
cluster brightness (optional)
brightest galaxy (optional)
cluster size (optional)

You can look this information up in the Hickson catalogue, which you can find in the Vizier Astronomical catalogue collection on
http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR

Brightest field star,

One way to find this is to look at the location of the group in cartes du ciel and download the USNO-B catalogue stars for the area.

A list of exposures and filters that you want to use.
The Faulkes FAQ or Faulkes Advice on using the Telescope, are useful for this, you should also check in the Faulkes project on the Bristoastrosoc forum to see what others are doing.

It is a good idea to check when your object is visible from Hawaii. Faulkes have a spreadsheet to assist with this on their software page, or you can use cartes du ciel.

Save your files on the ftp site

Mike will email your Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) files to you ((What is Fits?).
Please upload to the BAS image store at ftp://ftp.uk.linux.org/pub/people/al/bristolastrosoc/faulkes_raw_images/

Please use the following convention for the file name

Hickson----.fits


Make your colour image

I recommend the Gimp for combining your fits files to form a colour image which can be downloaded from http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/

Gimp Documentation is on http://docs.gimp.org/en/
and the Faulkes Gimp Instructions from http://www.faulkes-telescope.com/uploads/downloads/CI_the_gimp.pdf

When You have finished

Please print your images and put them together with a note of what you have done, on the club noticeboard, and pelase print a second copy for the diaplay material bag.

Talk to mike about letting Faulkes have your finased image.

Summary of helpful links

Below is a list of useful links for your Hickson galaxy project

Hickson Paper: http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Sept01/Hickson/Hickson_contents.html

CDS Astronomical Databases: http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/

Information Database Simbad: http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/sim-fid.plmepage

Catalogues Vizier: http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR

Sky Survey Aladin: http://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/aladin.gml

Tutorial: http://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/tutorials/cds.gml/

The Faulkes Telescope homepage: http://www.faulkes-telescope.com/

Support Page: http://www.faulkes-telescope.com/index.php?page=123

FAQ: http://www.faulkes-telescope.com/index.php?page=138

Instructions: http://www.faulkes-telescope.com/index.php?page=23

Instructions pdf: http://www.faulkes-telescope.com/uploads/downloads/FT_Advice_Booklet.pdf

Use of the Gimp: http://www.faulkes-telescope.com/uploads/downloads/CI_the_gimp.pdf

Hawaii Time Zone: http://www.timetemperature.com/tzus/hawaii_time_zone.shtml

Cartes Du Ciel: http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/

The Gimp for Windows: http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/

Gimp tutorials: http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/

Gimp manual (HTML use on line): http://docs.gimp.org/en/

If the following two link do not work, try right clicking and chose open in a new window.

Gimp manual (pdf): ftp://ftp.gimp.org/pub/gimp/docs/

Raw images from BAS ftp site: http://ftp.uk.linux.org/pub/people/al/bristolastrosoc/faulkes_raw_images/