This image shows many galaxies in the constellation of Draco. I have attached an annotated image which labels the primary objects in the image. The featured galaxy just above center is NGC 4319, the elliptical galaxy above left is NGC 4291, and the lenticular galaxy lower left is NGC 4386.

NGC 4319 is a face-on barred spiral galaxy located 80 million light years away. The galaxy structure appears disturbed, with beautifully unsymmetric sculpted arms, and this is likely caused by gravitational interaction with NGC 4291, which is a similar distance away from us.

The unusual object in the image is Markarian 205, the star-like object immediately to the right of the galaxy core of NGC 4319. This object is a quasar, estimated to be located over 1 billion light years away using its measured redshift. Based on this redshift value, the quasar is simply a background object seen through the arm of the galaxy.

Here is where the story gets interesting. In a 1971 paper, and later a subsequent 1987 followup paper, the famous astronomer Halton Arp discovered a luminous bridge between the galaxy and the quasar. He believed that this bridge indicated a physical relationship between the two objects. This discovery had huge implications, mainly that the assumption that redshift was an accurate measure of velocity and distance was incorrect, thus invalidating the theory of an expanding universe.  Arp thought that the quasar was not a background object and instead may have been ejected from the nucleus of the galaxy. Arp identified other examples of quasars near galaxies, but this one has the most evidence of a connection.

Since Arp's discovery, many detailed analyses of this bridge have been performed. The most famous, by NASA using a Hubble image in 2002, showed no evidence of a bridge, but other people have since reprocessed the same Hubble image to show that there is a bridge. The prevailing belief amongst most scientists today is that there is no bridge, but many people still subscribe to the Arp bridge view. If you do an internet search today, you will find an incredible number of different images which people believe convincingly show a bridge.

I thought it would be fun to point my small telescope in that direction to see what I could find for myself. I have always loved Arp's catalog and the stories about his interesting life. I also have been impressed that Arp would have the courage and tenacity to buck the prevailing majority view for so long and with such passion.

I kept my image processing to a minimum in order to preserve detail and avoid creating artifacts. It is difficult for me to see much detail in my wide field of view color image, even at full resolution. One thing which I think I do see in this color image is a small star in the foreground at the lower left edge of the quasar. But, the star doesn't appear to me to be big enough to impact the pixels in the "bridge" area between the galaxy and the quasar.

To my disappointment, my conclusion is that I do not see evidence of a bridge. I do see a tiny bit of a possible connection, and I can understand how some people might interpret this as a bridge. But my view is that the evidence from my image it is not strong enough to overturn the more logical conclusion that the quasar is simply a background object.

What do you see?