This object is a pair of interacting galaxies located 70 million light years away in the constellation of Cetus at a declination of -7 degrees. NGC 274 is the elliptical galaxy to the upper right, while NGC 275 is the spiral galaxy to the lower left. Each galaxy spans almost 2 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to an actual diameter for each galaxy of about 40,000 light years.
This object was classified by Dr. Arp in his category of Material Emanating from Elliptical Galaxies. All of the pairs in this category appear to be pairs of merging galaxies, so I think the category title is a bit odd.
I love the distorted shape of the spiral galaxy. The central region seems to have some sort of bar. I have tried to make sense of the arm structure, which has numerous blue star clusters, but it is confusing to me. The elliptical appears to lie behind the spiral and is not very distorted, as is often the case with interacting ellipticals.
The similarity of this object with other objects in the same Arp category, such as
Arp 141 and
Arp 143, is interesting to me. I attached a comparison image above with the galaxy pairs in the same orientation.
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