This object is a pair of distant, slightly barred galaxies located about 180 million light years away in the constellation of Aries at a declination of +20 degrees. This object was classified by Dr. Arp into the category of Double Galaxies – Interacting.
The larger galaxy is NGC 935 and the smaller galaxy is IC 1801. Both galaxies appear to us about 30 degrees from edge-on. As often happens, a foreground Milky Way star is superimposed over the object. NGC 935 spans 2 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of 100,000 light years. IC 1801 is a bit smaller.
I love galaxy pairs like this which are similar in size, at an oblique angle to our view, and whose primary axes appear to be orthogonal. This happens more often than it seems it should. Examples include
Arp 294,
NGC 4567 & 4568, and
Arp 271.
Although these 2 galaxies are ABOUT the same distance away, they are still 8 million light years apart per the latest estimate. This explains why little disturbance is seen in their disks. They are too far apart to be interacting very much, at least at this time. It looks to me as if NGC 935 is in the foreground.
There is one subtle aspect of this object that I find fascinating and that I do not understand. I have not seen it described anywhere. The outer disks of both of these galaxies appear to be darkened, as if in shadow, particularly the sections that are closest to the "intersecting point". After I noticed this effect, it seems like that is all I see now when looking at this pair.
Galactic cirrus surrounds these galaxies and results in a nice image when using a wider field of view than I did here.
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