This
Astrobin Debut Object is a pair of galaxies located 250 million light years away in the constellation of Pisces at a declination of +3 degrees. In his
Arp catalog, Dr. Arp classified this object into the category of Elliptical and Elliptical-like Galaxies Close to and Perturbing Spirals.
The bluish irregular galaxy at upper left is UGC 1449. The yellowish spiral galaxy at lower right is LEDA 7415. The data shows that these 2 galaxies are both at 250 million light years away. It looks like a small blue piece of the irregular galaxy is superimposed over the spiral disk, just left and above the yellow core.
I find it hard to believe that these 2 galaxies are both at the same distance, for these reasons:
- There is no sign of disturbance in the small spiral
- The irregular also looks fairly undisturbed to me, with no structure to the star streams.
- At this distance, the size of the bright, nicely structured spiral is 40,000 light years. I have never seen a tight bright spiral this small.
- At this distance, the size of the irregular galaxy is 120,000 light years. I don’t remember another irregular galaxy being this large.
This looks to me like a foreground irregular galaxy in front of a distant spiral. If the irregular galaxy is, say, 80 million light years away, its diameter would be 40,000 light years. And if the spiral is further out, say at 420 million light years away, its diameter would be 80,000 light years. These diameters would make more sense to me, but the distance data instead shows a distance of 250 million light years for both galaxies. My “proposed” distance numbers average out to a distance of 250 million light years. Is it possible that overlapping galaxies can corrupt the redshift measurement, showing both to be at the same average distance when in reality they are far apart? I don’t know.
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