Abell 2089 im Sternbild Corona Borealis
Abell 2089 is a galaxy cluster at a distance of nearly 1 billion light years in the constellation CrB that belongs to the "Corona Borealis Supercluster".
The most luminous galaxy in this cluster has the catalog number "LEDA 55375" and a brightness of 16.4mag. It is moving away from us at a
speed of over 22,000 kilometers per second. Interesting is also a spiral galaxy with the easy to remember designation "2MASX J15324410+2755203",
whose long axis has an angular extent of almost 40". This corresponds to a true diameter of 200,000 light years. So it seems to be a very large
spiral galaxy.
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In the field of Abell 2089 you can find some "brighter" stars, which make it easier to find the small galaxies. Most conspicuous is of course "LEDA 55375",
but the 8 other galaxies were also easy to find at 370x and with averted vision. The small patches of light flash out every now and then for a few seconds
before disappearing again in the blackness of the sky.
The galaxy "2MASX..." was quite faint even at 370x. There wasn't much of an "Edge-on Galaxy" to be seen, but it did appear slightly oval. Nevertheless a
great thing to have seen a spiral galaxy in more than 1 billion light years distance instead of the many elliptical galaxies.
