This
Astrobin Debut Object, also known as MCG+05-26-047, is a small spiral galaxy located 400 million light years away in the constellation of Leo Minor at a declination of +30 degrees. This magnitude 15 galaxy spans 0.8 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of 100,000 light years.
In his
Arp catalog, Dr. Arp classified this object into the category of Spiral Galaxies with Three Arms. I am not sure about the so-called “third arm”. I don’t see it anywhere.
By my assessment, our view of this galaxy lies about halfway between face-on and edge-on. Its structure looks fairly simple to me – a 2 strong armed, grand design spiral galaxy which has been distorted to some extent. The right and lower sides of the disk extend much further away from the off-center core. Bright star cluster regions are visible in the disk.
The key question is: what is causing the disturbance? The bright area above and left of the core could be a companion, but it looks more like a superimposed small star to me. I think it is possible that the disturbance culprit may already have been absorbed into the "lumpy" galaxy disk.
Comments