This
Astrobin Debut Object, also known as IC 4553, is located 270 million light years away in the constellation of Serpens at a declination of +23 degrees. The bright portion of this magnitude 13 object spans 45 arc-seconds in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of 70,000 light years. The star streams span about 200,000 light years.
In his
Arp catalog, Dr. Arp classified this object into the interesting category of Galaxies with Adjacent Loops.
Unlike many Arp objects, this one has been studied quite a bit. These studies have confirmed that this object likely consists of 2 galaxies in a
late stage merger. Infrared work has identified the remains of 2 closely spaced bright cores buried in the center of the object.
To me, this object looks very similar to
MCG+08-11-002. In both objects, the small bright white circular central region has a prominent dust band, surrounded by looping star streams in the outer region.
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