This
Astrobin Debut Object is a pair of galaxies located 580 million light years away in the constellation of Bootes at a declination of +19 degrees. In his
Arp catalog, Dr. Arp classified this object into the category of Spiral Galaxies with Low Surface Brightness Companions on Arms.
The grand design spiral galaxy on the left is LEDA 52803. This magnitude 16 galaxy with 2 strong arms spans 40 arc-seconds in our apparent view, which corresponds to a Milky Way like diameter of 120,000 light years. The smaller galaxy on the right is MCG+03-38-014, a magnitude 17 elliptical.
Neither galaxy shows much disturbance. I believe that these galaxies are not interacting.
Dr. Arp’s classification of this object into the companion category is interesting. It is not clear whether he is referring to the elliptical galaxy on the right of the spiral, or the small stellar-like object to the left. Again, the spiral doesn’t seem to show much disturbance, so my belief is that neither is a companion. But of course it is impossible to know for sure.
As an aside, I am surprised at the amount of star elongation in Dr. Arp’s image, especially since he notes that his seeing was above average at the time. It is interesting to note that this object, Arp 47, is only 15 arc-minutes away from Arp 328. The stars in his image of Arp 328 are perfectly round. So perhaps Arp 47 was taken from the edge of the plate for Arp 328, where the stars would have more distortion. This would also explain why such a distant and somewhat unspectacular object as this was chosen for the collection. It was a "freebee" and an easy add for him on a scope for which imaging time was hard to come by.
Comments