Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Leo (Leo)
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Arp 301, Gary Imm

Arp 301

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Arp 301, Gary Imm

Arp 301

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Description

This Astrobin Debut Object is a pair of magnitude 15 interacting galaxies located 280 million light years away in the constellation of Leo at a declination of +24 degrees. In his Arp catalog, Dr. Arp classified this object into the category of Double Galaxies.

The left galaxy is UGC 6207, an edge-on spiral spanning 1.4 arc-minutes in our apparent view. It has a Milky Way like diameter of 120,000 light years. The right galaxy is UGC 6204, a barred spiral with a diameter of 90,000 light years.

Both galaxies show signs of disturbance, indicating that they truly are interacting and not just superimposed:

- Star clusters and HII regions are scattered through both disks.

- A broad star stream arises from the left edge of the left galaxy.

- The right galaxy has an asymmetric, kinked arm structure.

A star stream may be bridging both galaxies, although the angle makes this hard to know for sure.

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