Maffei Galaxies

Galaxies Maffei I and Maffei II in Cassiopeia

Here is a view of two very dim galaxies hidden to the side of the Heart and Soul Nebula. They are called Maffei I and Maffei II. They were discovered by the Italian Astrophysicist Paolo Maffei in 1967 using infrared emissions. Both are hidden by the dust and gas of our Milky Way galaxy, I was pleasantly surprised to spot these two little blurs using the Williams Optics REDCAT51 scope. The yellow box shows where I zoomed in to show the galaxies on the bottom right view.
If it was not obscured by the Milky Way, Maffei I would be one of the largest and brightest galaxies in our sky, covering an area ¾ the size of the moon! Amazing!
Tech Specs: Williams Optics Redcat 51 APO, Celestron CGEM-DX mount (pier mounted), ZWO ASI071MC-Pro, Optolong L-eNhance 2” filter, 60 x 60 second exposures at a GAIN of 200, one hour total exposure with dark/bias frames, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Captured using Sequence Generator Pro (SGP) v3.03. Image date: November 25, 2019. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.

Thanks to http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/galgrps/maffei.html for the information listed below.

This is a list of the main galaxies in the Maffei group. A lot of the diameters of these galaxies are only rough estimates because most of these galaxies are very obscured. The dominant galaxies in this group are IC 342, Maffei I and Maffei II.

  1             2        3      4     5      6    7     8     9

Name           Equatorial      Blue  Type  Size Size   RV   Other

               Coordinates     Mag          (')  kly  km/s  Names

               RA       Dec

Cas 3        01 07.5  +51 26   17.1  Irr    1      5  -166  KKH5

KKH6         01 34.9  +52 06   17.0  Irr    1      5  -141

Cas 1        02 06.1  +69 01   16.4  Irr    5.5   10   -95  KK19

Perseus 1    02 24.6  +56 01   16.2  Irr    2.2    5   -93  KKH11

Perseus 2    02 27.4  +57 29   17.8  Irr    3.4   10   -90  KKH12

UGC 2773     02 32.1  +47 48   14.3  Irr    1.2    5   +83  KK28

MB 1         02 35.6  +59 23   19.5  Irr    1.9    5   +39  KK21

Maffei 1     02 36.6  +59 39   14.4  E     18.2   55  -138  UGCA 34

MB 2         02 37.0  +59 14     ?   Irr?    ?     ?    ?

Maffei 2     02 41.9  +59 36   16.0  SBbc  21.4   60  -134  UGCA 39

Dwingeloo 2  02 54.1  +59 00   20.5  Irr    5.4   20   -47

MB 3         02 55.7  +58 52   19.8  E      3.9   10   -43  KK22

Dwingeloo 1  02 56.9  +58 55   17.7  SBcd   8.0   35   -28  Cas 2

KK35         03 45.2  +67 52     ?   Irr     ?     ?   +32

IC 342       03 46.8  +68 06    9.2  Sc    36.3   75   -62

UGCA 86      03 59.8  +67 08   14.2  Sm    10.2   20   -12

Cam A        04 25.3  +72 48   14.9  E      3.1   10  -192  KK41

NGC 1569     04 30.8  +64 51   11.7  Irr    5.8   10  -153

NGC 1560     04 32.8  +71 53   12.1  Scd   11.5   35   -94

UGCA 92      04 32.1  +63 37   16.1  Irr    4.4   10  -164

Cam B        04 53.1  +67 06   16.7  Irr    2.6    5   +27  KK44

UGCA 105     05 14.2  +62 35   13.2  Sm     7.4   20   +76

Cam D        05 59.7  +73 26   17.1  Irr    1      5   +93  KKH34

Mailyan 16   06 47.8  +80 07   16.4  Irr    1      5  -157  KKH37

Column 1: The usual name of the galaxy.

Column 2: The Right Ascension for epoch 2000.

Column 3: The Declination for epoch 2000.

Column 4: The blue apparent magnitude of the galaxy.

Column 5: The galaxy type: E=Elliptical, S0=Lenticular, Sa,Sb,Sc,Sd=Spiral,

          SBa,SBb,SBc,SBd=Barred Spiral, Sm,SBm,Irr=Irregular.

Column 6: The angular diameter of the galaxy (arcminutes).

Column 7: The diameter of the galaxy (thousands of light years).

Column 8: The recessional velocity (km/s) of the galaxy relative to

          the cosmic microwave background.

Column 9: Other names of the galaxy.

References:

Huchtmeier W, Westpfahl D, Karachentsev I, Karachentseva V, (2001), The IC342/Maffei

        Group of Galaxies. Gas and Galaxy Evolution ASP Conf Ser 240, 589.

Buta R, McCall M, (1999), The IC342/Maffei Group Revealed. Astrophys J Supp, 124, 33.

Karachentsev I, Makarov D, Huchtmeier W, (1999) HI properties of nearby galaxies

        from a volume-limited sample. Astron Astrophys Suppl, 139, 97.

Schmidt K, Priebe A, Boller T, (1993), Nearby Galaxies. Astron Nachr, 314, 371.

The HyperLeda Database, (2003).