This rarely imaged object, also known as NGC 523, is a spiral galaxy located almost 200 million light years away in the constellation of Andromeda at a declination of +34 degrees. The main portion of this galaxy spans 1.5 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of 80,000 light years. The star stream extends longer than that, down and to the left.
This is a fascinating object. It looks like an empty scarf waiting for the snowman to show up. A thick dust lane envelops the whole galaxy, which isn’t terribly unusual, but then the dust lane extends far out beyond the galaxy within the extended star stream. Dr. Arp placed this galaxy in the category called Galaxies Disturbed with Interior Absorption. I honestly have no idea of what that might mean.
It is amazing how similar this object is to
Arp 157. Both galaxies appear to be in the midst of a merger of some sort, but our edge-on view prevents us from seeing or understanding very much of it.
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