ARP096

Arp 96 falls under Arp's category for spiral galaxies with elliptical galaxies on their arms. They are located 205 million light-years away based on their redshifts which are virtually identical. But we can't say the elliptical is on the arm of the spiral. It would be better to say it appears to be on the arm. If it really were I suspect the arm (more a plume) would be more highly distorted. Arp stated his categories as if they were fact when they were more how they appeared to him. In some cases the galaxy on a spiral's arm is now known to be a far distant galaxy. His other categories were often incorrect. Especially those that he said categorized as material ejected from the nucleus. That's not true for any in that category that I've been able to determine. In this case, their redshifts are virtually identical indicating they are closely related but that doesn't mean one is on the arm of the other. Still, interaction likely is why the spiral's arms are so distended. Also, note the faint arc of stars at the southern end of the lower galaxies halo about halfway to the red star below it. Why is this short arc so well defined? I found nothing on it.

Arp's comment on this pair reads: "Faint diffuse counter arm, and arm leading to companion." These don't follow the curve of the two arms of the spiral galaxy and lie beyond them. They appear even more diffuse than the spiral which is surprisingly diffuse for a spiral to begin with. I would call them plumes rather than arms. It appears to be an old spiral in which star formation ceased several billion years ago turning it somewhat red in color as the bluer stars have all burned out and turned to faint white dwarfs, pulsars etc. that give off little light. Since it is usually the hot blue stars that give a spiral it's highly detailed features it isn't surprising that without them it looks awfully fuzzy. This could be the result of an interaction far older than its encounter with the current elliptical companion but I doubt it.

This pair is known as UGC 03536B/MCG +14-04-10 (spiral) and UGC 3536A/MCG +14-04-11 (elliptical). NED says the spiral is Sc while the Elliptical is just listed as E or E? A note at NED says of it: "Compact symmetrical object with red envelope." The pair is located in Cepheus only 3.4 degrees from the pole. Certainly, it would qualify as the Arp North Pole Galaxy. Imaging this close to the pole is testament to how precisely I've achieved polar alignment. It takes extreme accuracy to go for two hours without image rotation at this declination as any who have tried it can attest. Until the storm forced me to take out my two Polaris trees I'd not been able to do any imaging in this part of the sky. The Arp 25-114 pair is less than a degree further from the pole. This close to the pole I can ignore my rule of sticking within 2 hours of the meridian as it makes very little difference.

Actually, this is a triple galaxy in the WBL (White+Bliton+Bhavsar groups) and KTG (Karachentsev Isolated Triplets of Galaxies Catalogue) catalogs. The third galaxy is CGCG 362-033/MCG +14-04-014/PGC 020191 among other designations. It is the obvious spiral to the northeast. It is listed as Sa in NED. It appears to have a ring structure in my image not mentioned in the classification. This may be due to my resolution and when seen at higher resolution is not a ring at all. I was unable to find any images of it on the net with even as much resolution as I have.

No other galaxy in the image has a redshift at NED so I didn't prepare an annotated image.

This image was taken at 0.5" per pixel. The image has been cropped however as even cropped it is 3006x2004 pixels in size. These galaxies are quite small in angular size and I took advantage of one of the very rare nights when this was possible.

Arp's image of the pair is at: http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp96.jpeg
For his image, he used 103a-D film. I used a lot of it in my film days before 2415 film was available. I still had part of a 100' roll in my freezer when I gave up film work. I threw it out as it was about 20 years old as I'd changed to hypered 2415 years before. It is rather well matched to the human eye for its response covering 4700 to 6000 angstroms. So lops off the blue and red ends of the spectrum passing mostly the region our eye is most sensitive to. Arp used no filter. Since these galaxies are somewhat red I'd have expected him to have used 103a-E which is more red sensitive.

Arp's image: http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp96.jpeg

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x10'x1 RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP096

ARP097

Arp 97 is classed by Arp as "Spiral galaxies with companion on arms: elliptical galaxy companions". This double galaxy has only a single designation UGC7085A. Oddly UGC 7085 is 22 degrees south of this pair and in no way related. There must be an interesting story here but I don't know it. The pair is about 330 million light years away so getting much detail is rather difficult. The southern galaxy has two bright arms obviously tidally extended and straightened. The north arm extends over the northern galaxy. Its yellow color contrasting to the blue of the overlaying arm. Note though that the lower galaxy seems to have a third arm running nearly due east. Well a tidal feature heads east, sort of toward the very blue galaxy MCG+05-29-012. Its distance is 353 million light years. Close enough that it too may be involved though I found no papers indicating this and it doesn't show any sign of distortion. It may be this "arm" is just an entirely separate object, probably much closer than the two making up Arp 97 but so faint it isn't seen over the galaxy. It shows in the SDSS image so is real.

To the west is SDSS J120531.04+310434.1, another very blue galaxy that seems to have a hole in the middle of it. I wish seeing was better, it could be due to unresolved arms and nothing more. I can find no redshift data for it. To the upper left of Arp 97 over halfway to the upper edge is a rather red disk galaxy. After all the blue ones it stands out. Its red color made me wonder if it was surprisingly far away. Since I was finding little red shift data in this area I didn't hold out much hope but I got a pleasant surprise. It is SDSS J120609.43+311002.8 and is 1.08 billion light years distant. It must be one huge spiral! Between it and a very bright star to its upper right is another very blue galaxy. It is CGO151 at about 400 million light years, too far to be related to Arp 97.

Things get rather interesting toward the NW (upper right). There's a quartet of rather interesting galaxies up there. The big one seen face-on is UGC 07064, an SAB(r) Seyfert galaxy. It is described as "no spiral structure with smooth disk" by one paper I found on it. There seems to be a nice ring around the faint bar and on the east side (left) a faint arm seems to spiral out and around in a clockwise direction ending at a field star. There also appears to be a tidal bulge to the disk on the west side. A faint linear plume appears to extend off the top of it toward the northeast passing just under the double galaxy. It is 353 million light years distant per its red shift the same as MCG+05-29-012 east of Arp 97. Below it is the odd spiral CGCG 158-10 at 373 million light years. A blue field star at its south end makes determining what is going on here difficult but I do see faint tidal distortions. One on the NE side going up to UGC 07064, the other on the west side going down. North of UGC 07064 is CGCG 158-011 A pair of galaxies. They appear to be interacting but I can find no redshift data on them so can't tell if they are related to either each other or the other two galaxies.

I moved Arp 97 east from center to include these 4 galaxies in the full frame.

Arp's image with the 200" Hale Telescope is at:
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp97.jpeg

14" LX200R @ f/10/ L=4x10' RGB=2x10, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP097

ARP098

Arp 98 is a pair of interacting galaxies. Arp classed them under "Spiral galaxy with companion on arms: Elliptical galaxy companions." The spiral is PGC 5715 and is classed as Sbc at NED with a red shift distance of a bit less than 550 million light years. Seligman classifies it as Sbc? pec. One paper says "The 'bridge' has no relation to the normal spiral arms which are bound more tightly." I assume that refers to the bright tiny arms just visible in my shot. Still the bridge does appear to come off of one same as the opposite tidal arm comes off the other one. The elliptical galaxy is PGC 5714 and is called a red, spherical compact galaxy with halo. Seligman classifies it as E/S0. It has a red shift distance of a bit more than 550 million light years. The difference is likely due to gravitational interaction between the two. The spiral seems to have a small bright spiral then huge distorted spiral arms likely due to interaction with PGC 5714. I measure the extent of these arms as being nearly 170,000 light-years turning what would have been a small galaxy into an apparently large one though I suspect its mass is much less than the slightly smaller PGC 5714 which I measure as being about 140,000 light-years across.

At the far upper left is PGC 5484 at the same distance as PGC 5715 so a member of the group. It is classed simply as a spiral galaxy. Directly west (right) of Arp 98 is 2MASXi J0131394+320601 ID a galaxy bright in infrared light. Like all other galaxies in the image, I can find no data on it. Arp 98 is located in the constellation of Triangulum just north of the far more famous Triangulum Galaxy, M33.

I'd not made an annotated image but there is one faint asteroid in the image. I enhanced it on the annotated image as my processing from 2009 was so poor I nearly deleted it.

Arp's photo is at:
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp98.jpeg

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP098

ARP099

Arp 99 is in Arp's class "spiral galaxies with E galaxy companions on arms". His catalog entry has this rather odd comment considering his classification of it; "Connection not seen, but note difference in arms toward and away from E(lliptical) galaxy. Note also material between preceding spiral and E(lliptical) galaxy." He couldn't see any connecting arm yet it is classed as if such a connection was there. Arp is part of the 5 galaxy Hickson Compact Galaxy Group HCG 93.

Arp 99 is a double or triple galaxy group consisting of NGC 7547 on the right (Seligman says it isn't part of Arp 99 but most other sources say it is and Arp offset the two to include the third so I'm going with 3), NGC 7549 the unequal arm spiral at the top and NGC 7550 the highly torn apart elliptical like galaxy below it. The system is about 200+ million light-years away. Redshift puts them at 200, 200 and 210 million light-years distant respectively. That would seem to put the distorted elliptical well behind the other two. It's more likely that it's really at about the same distance but their relative motions create the differences.

There appears to be a fourth member of the group, NGC 7558, down and left of NGC 7550, but it is nearly 400 million light years distant so not involved. It is a nice face on Sa spiral in any case. Well, that's what NED says. The NGC Project says E-S0. NGC 7547 (R')SAB(s)0/a: pec at NED or more simply SBa pec by the NGC project. I prefer this latter classification. NGC 7579 is classed by NED as SB(s)cd pec with an Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) type not specified. NGC project calls it SBc pec. I prefer NED on this one. NGC 7550. NED classes NGC 7550 as S0- with an AGN while the NGC Project says E-S0. I'd think it rated a pec designation as well. The last NGC galaxy in the field is NGC 7553 due east of NGC 7549. It is classed by NED and the NGC Project as S0. Finally, they agree!

This field is outside the SDSS area so few galaxies have data on them at NED. So there's little data available. What little there is I've included in an annotated image. Two galaxies that had no distance data are listed as well. Normally I list galaxies that are identified only by position with just a G as the positional names really can clutter an image. This one had so little to work with that wasn't necessary.

I can add that NGC 7547 was discovered by John Herschel on August 26, 1827. NGC 7549 and NGC 7553 were discovered by Bindon Stoney on November 2, 1850. NGC 7558 was found by Albert Marth on November 3, 1864. William Herschel found NGC 7550 on September 18, 1784. However, it isn't in either of the Herschel 400 observing programs.

Arp's image:
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp99.jpeg

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP099

ARP100

Arp 100 is a pair of interacting galaxies, IC 18 and IC 19. Arp classified the pair under "spiral with elliptical galaxy companion". IC 18 is the interesting one. Probably an Sb galaxy before it had the misfortune of meeting up with IC 19 or some other galaxy. The passage drew out two tidal arms. IC 19 is a typical elliptical with sufficient mass and density that it was little distorted by the passage. It is the galaxy south and a bit east of IC 18. The pair is about 260 to 290 million light years from us. IC 18 without its tidal arms is only about 35 million light-years across, a small spiral galaxy. With its tidal arms, it is at least 220,000 light years across!

Between the two but far more distant is APMUKS(BJ) B002603.91-115232.3. I can find no distance data on it. That is the case with almost all the other galaxies in this image. The only one I could find anything on was LEDA 1719. This is the bright elliptical nearly directly west (right) of IC 18 and just above a bright star. It shows a red shift light travel distance of 275 million light years. So may be related to the two galaxies known as Arp 100. If you look closely you'll see many of the "stars" in this image are fuzzy and thus really very distant galaxies, nearly all uncatalogued.

Arp 18 and 19 were discovered by Stephane Javelle on August 31, 1892.

Arp's image: http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp100.jpeg

14" LX200R @ f/10, l=4x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP100

ARP101

Arp 101/UGC 10164-69/PGC 56938-53 is a pair of interacting galaxies in Serpens Caput just south of the main Hercules galaxy clusters. It is about 215-220 million light-years distant. UGC 10169 is the northern one with the straight tail that resembles one of the Mice, Arp 242. Arp didn't see the similarity it seems. He classed this pair under: Spiral Galaxies with Elliptical Galaxy Companions. The Mice he classed as: Appearance of Fission. To me, this shows how seriously he took tARP103-NGC6241-ZWICKY'S_CONNECTED_MULTIPLE_SYSTEM-ZWICKY'S_TRIPLETARP103-NGC6241-ZWICKY'S_CONNECTED_MULTIPLE_SYSTEM-ZWICKY'S_TRIPLEThe fission concept. Maybe to the point of believing it. In neither case were the huge plumes considered in the classification which I find interesting as well. Arp made no comment on this one. This appears to be a poorly studied pair as I found little on these two.

Only one other galaxy in my image appears to be related to the two galaxies making up Arp 101. That is CGCG 108-089. A blue spiral near the bottom of my image right of center. Virtually all the other galaxies in the image with redshift data are part of a group at about a half billion light-years. A bit over twice as distant as Arp 101. There's one galaxy cluster at 2.8 billion light-years marked by a bright cluster galaxy. Redshift data was only listed for the cluster and that was measured photographically rather than spectroscopically so not as accurate, especially for objects this close.

In processing the image I was struck by several bright blue stars. I suspected most were quasars but only one is so listed in NED. Nearly all quasars in NED have redshift data. Unfortunately, this one (left of Arp 101) wasn't one of them. Its label in the annotated image reads D? for distance unknown. Edit: Since this was written several years ago, a redshift has been determined and the annotated image edited to show a distance of 4.06 million light-years.

Redshift data is lacking for the vast number of galaxies in this image. I almost didn't prepare an annotated image.

In researching Arp Galaxies I come up with some rather odd links. Apparently, there's a musical group in England called Arp.101 and they use Arp's negative image of Arp 101 for their logo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNYG-_Yhs_Q

Arp's image
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp101.jpeg

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=5x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP101

ARP102

Arp 102 is also known as Zwicky's Connected Galaxies, not to be confused with Arp 103 known as Zwicky's Connected Multiple System. This one was difficult to research. I found little on the galaxies involved and some catalogs have the position of one or more wrong. Few other galaxies in the field are cataloged and again when they were I found their positions often in error apparently due to incorrect precession calculation as ALADIN's image overlay was shifted in some areas in the direction of precession motion in this part of the sky. Not only that, NED and SIMBAD sometimes had different coordinates, neither of which were correct. I'm not sure if we have 2 or 3 galaxies here. The brightening in the southern end of the northern galaxy is listed as a separate galaxy in some catalogs, MCG+8-31-42 for example. It appears it could be a one-armed dwarf spiral. While I never found anything on it, it could be they are a merger in progress with that brightening being the remains of the cannibalized galaxy. This may explain the very large tidal tail to the north. Or it is just a star cloud in the galaxy.

The main galaxy is UGC 10814/PGC 60070 or VV10a, The possible galaxy at its south end is MCG+8-31-42 or VV10b. The brightening toward the north end of the big tidal arm is VV10c. So was it a separate galaxy at one time? I doubt it but can't say no either. UGC 10814 is classed as Sb. No peculiar designation. MCG+8-31-42 is classed as Sd. Again no peculiar designation. The southern large member is the E0 galaxy MCG +08-31-041/PGC 60067. It is noted to be a Seyfert and LINER galaxy. Its core is quite active probably due to its interaction with UGC 10814.

This system is about 327 million light-years distant in northern Hercules. Arp's comment: "Note loop E side of spiral; diffuse, very faint connection to E galaxy." The loop is very blue in my image. The last part makes no sense to me. If he is using the spiral as his reference (UGC 10814) then the elliptical that is connected by a very faint tidal arm is southwest not east.

About 6 minutes east and a bit south of UGC 10814 is what appears to be a pair of interacting blue galaxies. The southwest galaxy is LEDA 140772. A second object is listed at NED but with a larger error circle, GALEXASC J171958.88+490054.8 that either refers to both or one but which one? I can't tell. I can't find anything more on these. A bit below it is a blue star with a tiny anonymous galaxy to its right. Below this is a fairly red galaxy. There's a star to its left and a starlike galaxy above this star making a compact triangle. If you precess their coordinates back about 1990 coordinates instead of 2000 you come to the positions in SIMBAD for 1E 1718.6+4902 a Seyfert galaxy and CIG 1719+48. NED lists the Seyfert as MS 1718.6+4902 with a position 20" south and a bit west but the magnitude and Seyfert classification is correct. Nothing is seen at NED's position even though it is listed as magnitude 19.1 which should show easily. If they are the same then it is 2.4 billion light years. Its color is typical of galaxies at that distance. The galaxy to its NE is not in NED. SIMBAD lists it as CIG 1719+48. The numbers designate their RA and Declination but are not accurate enough to settle this position issue. Positions of the two catalogs are different epochs. This is why the northern galaxy appears to be the southern one. It is J2000 while the other appears to be B1950. Dennis Webb tells me issues like this delayed their book on the Arp galaxies by 3 years. I can fully appreciate this!

The largest galaxy besides those in Arp 102 is 2MFGC 13790 which is east of the southern galaxy of Arp 102. It is an obvious edge on spiral. But I have no distance information on it. Above it is a pair of galaxies that may be interacting or just along the same line of sight. Unfortunately, they are anonymous in both NED and SIMBAD. The Sky does say one of them, probably the western one, is PGC 2331580 Unfortunately, this is the case with the rest of the galaxies in the image. Only about 4 are listed with little useful data but for coordinates, all in the 2MASX survey of infrared galaxies.

No Hubble or SDSS image is available.

Arp's image:
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp102.jpeg

14" LX200R 14" f/10, L=4x10' RGB=3x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP102

ARP103

Arp 103 is also known as Zwicky's Connected Multiple System or Zwicky's Triplet depending on who you read. It consists of three galaxies. They have many different designations, none all that common. NED prefers UGC 10586 Notes 3, UGC 10586 Notes 4 and UGC 10586 Noted 5. Also in the image are UGC 10586, UGC 10586 Notes 1 and UGC 10586 Notes 2. So by the UGC, it is a 6 galaxy system. UGC 10586 notes 2 is better known as NGC 6241. These galaxies are located in the constellation of Hercules at a distance of about 425 million light years. It consists of two southern galaxies, Notes 3 and 4 and a northern galaxy 2.5 minutes north. A faint arm connects Notes 3 and 5. Several knots are seen in it. About halfway between the two is another faint arm running at nearly right angles to the connecting arm which contains a broad extension on the western side. It makes the lower galaxy look much like the Umbrella Galaxy, Arp 189. I can't see it continuing beyond this point, rather the plume from the northern galaxy comes down to meet it. Thus there may be no true connection. The horizontal bar is only hinted at in Arp's image but appears rather obvious in mine. Also not seen well in Arp's image is the large splash of stars that surrounds the southern pair. The knots in the connecting arm appear somewhat blue indicating new stars.

Arp classed this triplet under Elliptical and elliptical-like galaxies connected to spirals. NED classes the three galaxies as: Notes 3 SAB(rs)0+ pec, Notes 4 S0 pec: and Notes 5 as SAB0^+(rs) pec in one reference. None are listed as elliptical but one is S0. So elliptical like fits but which is the spiral? His only comment just says: "Incomplete connection, blue knots in south member." My image seems to show the connection is complete, not only in the narrow tail but a fainter broad tail as well.

You've probably guessed the other two major galaxies in the image are two of the three other parts of the UGC 10586 system. The bright spiral east of Arp 103 is UGC 10586 Notes 2, better known as NGC 6241, an Sbc spiral with lots of bright knots in its arms. They are more white than blue. Still, it looks like an active galaxy. Its redshift distance puts it at about 410 million light-years. The difference is likely just due to orbital motion about the groups center of gravity and really at about the same distance as Arp 103. NGC 6241 was discovered by William Herschel on April 29, 1788 but isn't in either of the Herschel 400 observing programs.

UGC 10586 is the remaining face on spiral further east than NGC 6241. Why do all of these appear to be face on? The note at NED for this galaxy belongs with Arp 103, not this galaxy. UGC 10586 is a face on Sb spiral that has a rather faint arm compared to the others. Apparently, that wasn't odd enough to make Arp's catalog. Sure seems unusual to me. It has a redshift distance of 424 million light-years, same as Arp 103.

So where is UGC 10586 Notes 1? It is the small blue galaxy just beyond the northeast edge of UGC 10586 near a bright yellow-white star. It seems rather distorted with both a blue and white region with an arm jutting out the south side. I can't find any distance or classification on this one. The red galaxy to the southwest of UGC 10586 is 2MASX J16504319+4523545, again not much on it. Why it too isn't listed as part of the UGC 10586 system I don't know.

Unfortunately, this paucity of information pertains to the rest of the image. Even though the SDSS lists nearly 3000 galaxies in this field only 5 of the 6 members of the UGC 10586 system have any redshift data at the time this was written.

ARP103-NGC6241-ZWICKY'S_CONNECTED_MULTIPLE_SYSTEM-ZWICKY'S_TRIPLET

Arp's image is at:
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp103.jpeg

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP103

ARP104

Arp 104 is Keenan's System made up of NGC 5216 (south, bottom) and NGC 5218 north. Classed by Arp under "Elliptical and elliptical-like Galaxies: Connected to Spirals" Yep, that sure fits this pair. One note describes the pair saying "Distorted spiral with an S0 companion, well separated but with a connecting arm. North (spiral) is NGC 5218, which has no bright nucleus." Yes, that poor spiral did take a potent hit from this interaction.

There's confusion about which galaxy is which. Here's the NGC Project on this issue: "NGC 5216 and NGC 5218. The MCG identifications are reversed from those by all other observers. There is no apparent reason for this in the NGC itself, and I doubt that Vorontsov or his colleagues consulted JH's 1833 catalogue where there is an identification error. For the record, Sir John makes his h 1635 a "nova" while he incorrectly labels h 1636 as H II 841. Sir William's original observation was of two objects which became H II 841 and H II 842. Sir John got the identifications sorted out for the GC, and the NGC has them exactly correct, too.

So, the MCG is the only catalogue which reverses the identifications. All the other modern catalogues are correct in placing N5216 south-preceding N5218."
- Dr. Harold G. Corwin, Jr."

NED puts the pair at 153 million light-years but puts NGC 5216 at only 140 million light-years E0 pec, and 5218 at 139 million light-years SBb pec and as a LINER galaxy as well. The interaction has apparently triggered the activity needed to create a LINER status for the galaxy. Both were discovered by William Herschel on March 19, 1790. Like many Arp galaxies he found, neither are in either of the Herschel 400 observing programs.

The lower galaxy, NGC 5216, reminds me of Arp 165 which was an elliptical galaxy with a faint blue arm but no sign of any galaxy it had interacted with. NGC 5216 is very similar but this time we know the culprit.

Galaxy east of lower 104 is SDSS J133257.25+624038.6 an IR galaxy 1.3 BLY

MaxBCG J202.88728+62.64181 BCG at 2.63 BLY is the anchor galaxy of the galaxy cluster of the same name (without BCG at the end). it consists of some 28 members many of which show in my image as orange dots around this galaxy to the lower left of the lower Arp 104 galaxy. The color contrast with the quasar below it is very strong.

Pair of nearly overlapping galaxies in upper right corner. They are SDSS J133039.33+625507.1 at 2.7 billion light-years and SDSS J133038.56+625508.8 with no redshift data so it is marked with a "?". Thus I don't know if they are interacting or not.

The Q? above NGC 5218 denotes a possible QSO candidate per NED. Though its status is rather indeterminate. It is classed as SDSS J133038.56+625508.8, a galaxy in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and GALEX, an ultraviolet orbiting observatory classes it as GALEX 2685493392111045227 Berk 27 w/txtan ultraviolet excess source which isn't surprising considering its blue color. The US Naval Observatory has it classed as VisS which just means it is an unknown object visible in ordinary light. I found no distant estimate for it.

In the upper left corner is a somewhat blue double galaxy. At least it has two condensations. Oddly I can find no cataloged object at its location. In fact, there's nothing of its brightness cataloged within several minutes of arc of this location. Yet the area is covered by the SDSS. I checked the POSS II plates and it is a real object. How the pros let this one get away I don't know. Edit: Since this was written NED now picks it up as GALEXASC J133417.73+625742.8 an Uv Source. The Galex satellites resolution was likely insufficient to see it as two objects. Even the position has 3x larger error bars than most objects in NED. Unfortunately, that's about all it tells me. SDSS image shows what appears to be two merging, very blue galaxies assuming they are at the same distance which appears quite possible.

Arp's image is at: http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp104.jpeg

It is located in Ursa Major above the Big Dipper's handle right at the boundary with Draco not far from Thuban.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=9x10' Rx10'x3 G=4x10'x3 B=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP104

ARP105

Arp 105, Ambarzumian's (Ambartsumian's) Knot, The Guitar and Abell 1185

This one turned out to be a complicated region. I'd never heard of Ambarzumian's Knot before and when I did I assumed it to be the puffy cloud at the end of the tidal plume or jet or whatever that feature is. Wrong! That is VV247f, one of several brightenings in the tidal feature, of which little seems to be found in the literature. Arp 105 is sometimes called "The Guitar". I find two spellings of the knot's name in the literature. I don't know which is more correct.

In any case, Arp 105 consists of 3 galaxies; there are two more involved though one is invisible to any image I could find and the other barely seen in my image. Arp originally only saw the three obvious ones. The upper one is NGC 3561A. It appears to be a very disturbed spiral. It is classed as either SA(r)a pec or S0^0? pec. The major plumes seem to come from it. Below it is the large elliptical NGC 3561. It too is classed as either SA(r)a pec or S0^0^: pec and is a LINER or Sy3 galaxy. Below it is the nearly starlike Ambarzumian's Knot. It is very blue compared to the other two. Zwicky later found two more galaxies that are within the halo of NGC 3561. Both very blue as well. Ambarzumian's Knot and these other two are known as the Zwicky connected multiple system. All are very blue. The one closest to the core of 3561 can't be seen in my image and is listed as magnitude 21.5. Seeing something that faint against a bright core, even when blue would be very difficult for my seeing and image scale. The second does show thanks to its blue color. It is about halfway between the core and Ambarzumian's knot which is also blue. Both are said to be starlike even to the 200" scope and were the first galaxies found by it to be indistinguishable from stars. I need to retry this on a better night at 0.5" per pixel and see if I can pick up the other one. Likely a fool's errand but an interesting challenge. This complex is located below the back foot of Ursa Major right in the corner with Leo and Leo Minor. NGC 3561 was discovered by John Herschel on March 30, 1827.

Since Arp 105 is located nearly dead center in the Abell 1185 cluster the entire field is chock full of galaxies. There's another interacting system to the northwest of Arp 105. While there are three galaxies in one halo catalogs only refer to the middle and upper left one as a pair (NGC 3550) and ignore the fainter one to the southwest. The SDSS lists the southwestern galaxy but gives no redshift. Dr. Corwin says on his NGC project page that its redshift is about the same as the other two, 11,000km/s rather than about 10,400 km/s for the other two. But doesn't offer an opinion whether it is tidally involved with the other two.

There's a quasar in the image quite near Arp 105 that's 10.7 billion light-years from us. Since Arp considers many quasars to be nearby objects ejected from active galaxies, rather than enormous active black holes in very distant galaxies as is the standard view I would imagine this quasar would fit his ideas quite well even though it is most likely just a coincidence.

There are a bunch of very distant galaxies in the northeastern (upper left) part of the image. These appear to be part of the galaxy cluster ZwCl 1109.5+2906 about 11 minutes in diameter containing some 77 galaxies. No distance estimate but it obviously lies far beyond Abell 1185.

I've made an annotated image of the cluster. Members with a redshift that is in the 400-475 million light year range of the cluster, and Arp 105 are identified without any distance data given. A few beyond the cluster are noted only with their distance in billions of light-years when the only catalog entry is one that just gives its coordinates. Some that could be members but have no redshift data are identified by name followed by a question mark. The two quasars are noted by name. Labels are to the right of the object when possible. If not possible a line points to the object. The various pieces of Arp 105 that are named are shown. NGC 3558 is off the bottom of the screen except for the very northern part of its halo. I didn't realize it was there or I'd have moved Arp 105 up a bit so NGC 3558 would be fully in the frame. NGC 3552 AND NGC 3553 seem reversed from normal Right Ascension order. Dr. Corwin, however, believes this fits Herschel's records. You can read more about this issue at the NGC Project http://www.ngcicproject.org/dss/dss_n3500.asp click on NGC 3553 for the info. Click on 3552 for more on the Abell cluster in general. Click on NGC 3561 for more on Arp 105.

On the left side of the image, a red question mark leads to a galaxy I couldn't find in the SDSS or any other catalog but nearby is SDSS J111206.71+284754.2 a 21.7 magnitude near star-like galaxy. So how can the SDSS pick up this faint one but not the far larger, brighter one? There's no redshift data on SDSS J111206.71+284754.2. I found a couple other galaxies, not in any catalog. They too are marked with a red question mark. Likely there are others but these are the brightest of the "outcast" galaxies.

I've marked the center of another listed cluster of galaxies. NED shows it to be 11 minutes in diameter. That would extend off the north and east sides of my image. No details are provided other than it is "medium compact" and has 77 members.

I should mention that with the passing of Geoffrey Burbidge a few days ago (Edit: This was written in late January 2010.), Arp lost another who believed in the non-cosmological nature of quasar redshifts. That is, they don't indicate distance as far as Burbidge and Arp are concerned. His reasoning was different than Arp's and didn't require new physics but did require some stretching of credulity in my opinion. That only leaves his wife Margaret Burbidge and Chip Arp as major names supporting non-cosmological redshift. How they do this in the face of such overwhelming evidence to the contrary boggles my mind. Edit: Arp has since died but Margaret is still alive as this is written on November 26, 2017 at age 98.

California, France, Hawaii Telescope image of this field. A 3.6 meter telescope, 100 times the light gathering power of my system.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap051122.html

Arp's image
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp105.jpeg

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP105