These Astrobin Debut Objects, also known as IC 1622 and IC 1623, are located 275 million light years away in the constellation of Cetus at a declination of -18 degrees. 

In his Arp Catalog, Dr. Arp classified this object into the category of Galaxies with Appearance of Fission.  Dr. Arp's image contained both IC 1622 (lower right) and IC 1623 (upper left), even though his "fission" statement referred to just IC 1623.  My mouseover comparison, which includes Hubble’s IC1623-only image, focuses only on IC 1623.

IC 1623 is a late stage merger of two colliding galaxies.  Although Dr. Arp believed that IC 1623 is splitting, the prevalent belief today is that it is a merger.  The magnitude 14.5 core remnants at right are IC 1623A, while the magnitude 15.5 core remnants at left are IC 1623B.   It looks to me like they were 2 former spirals but who knows?  Both remnants are classified as luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs). These remnants are separated by an orange dust band in the middle. 

The entire object spans almost 1 arc-minute in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of 70,000 light years.  This object reminds me a bit of another late stage merger, NGC 3256.

IC 1622 is also an interesting galaxy, with a diameter of 50,000 light years.  2 main arms and 3 short stubs are visible in the disk. VV rows are seen in the arms.   Distortion is present in the disk, likely caused by its proximity to IC 1623.  The objects are only 300,000 light years apart in the frame of the image, but are likely much further away from each other due to out-of-plane separation.

This object is the last one for me to capture of the Arp Catalog.  The 338 Arp objects range in size from 1 degree to 15 arc-seconds, and in declination from +87 N to -43 S.  ​​​​​​All were imaged from my backyard over the past 4.5 years.  Each image can be seen in my Astrobin Arp Collection.  The catalog represents about 2000 hours of imaging and another 2000 hours of processing, researching, documenting and posting on Astrobin.  Thanks to all of my Astrobin friends for their constant support and encouragement. 

An overview of the process I used to capture these Arp images is seen here on the YouTube Astro Imaging Channel.