ARP200

Information on the area of Arp 200, NGC 1134, is quite limited. Arp classified it as "Galaxies not classifiable as S(piral) or E(lliptical): material ejected from nuclei". I'm not all that sure what he is referring to. There is a tidal splash coming from the north end of the galaxy heading east toward UGC 02362. This seems the most likely explanation. Arp did frame his image to show this faint feature. The galaxy at the bottom is IC 0267. All three are related as they all lie at a distance of about 150 million light years. There's no information on the other galaxies in the field as to distance. The only other galaxy of any size is LEDA 213115 to the west of UGC 02362. There are many distant galaxies in the image but I couldn't find anything on them.

NGC 1134 was discovered by William Herschel on October 16, 1784. It isn't in either of the Herschel 400 observing programs. IC 267 was discovered by Lewis Swift on November 8, 1887.

Arp's image: http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp200.jpeg

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

See my entry for IC 1134 for a better image and discussion.

Related Designations for ARP200

ARP201

Arp 201/UGC 224 is a pair of galaxies located about 824 to 830 million light years distant (depending on which redshift value you use) and is located in the constellation of Pisces near its border with Cetus. The pair are usually considered as interacting. Arp's note reads: "VV connection between galaxies not seen here or on Survey prints." I can't see a connection on my image either. However, a 1986 note at NED reads: "Interacting pair of E (south) and S0 (north) galaxies. Faint matter is ejected northward from the latter." Is it this "faint matter" that caught Arp's eye? He has it classed under galaxies with matter ejected from nuclei. The note's authors consider these stars, dust and gas as being ejected by some force from the northern galaxy. More likely it is some sort of tidal plume and could have come from either galaxy. It is quite a bit bluer than either galaxy. That would indicate that mostly dust and gas was pulled from one of the galaxies and has formed into new stars since the plume was created. It could be a third galaxy hiding behind the other two. In fact, I'm leaning to that idea.

Kanipe and Webb see the three patches of light that come out of the southern galaxy's southeast side and go south as the ejected material. These are clearly background galaxies. Though in Arp's image they are just faint smudges. Same in mine though I only pick up the two brighter ones with a hint of the fainter one closest to the southern galaxy. I suppose it is possible this is what Arp referred to but without more to go on I vote for the northern galaxy's blue plume or third galaxy. It may even come from the southern galaxy I've included a DR8 release image of this object. Note the two brighter background galaxies in Kanipe's and Webb's opinion that are the ejected material are quite different colors with the northern reddish while the southern is slightly blue. Neither were strong enough for me to get sufficient color data so they appear white in my image. NED identifies the two brightest as SDSS J002338.56-003049.9 (north) and SDSS J002338.71-003059.7 (south). The faint northernmost object isn't listed in NED at all though one not seen in Arp's image but faintly visible in the SDSS image is. Therefore I think it a faint foreground star. It appears starlike in both the Arp and the SDSS images.

None of this means Arp didn't think these objects were ejected from the southern galaxy. He held, and still holds I believe, that quasars are ejected from active galaxies. So he could see these two galaxies and a star as objects ejected from the galaxy. In any case, the blue feature above the northern galaxy is what makes this one interesting to me.

While the note indicates the southern galaxy is an elliptical and the northern S0, NED abstains from classifying them at all. To me, I'd say the notes classifications appear reasonable.

As mentioned, Arp considered quasars as being emitted from active galaxies. Several going out to nearly 11 billion light-years are in the image as well as some Ultraviolet Excess objects that are likely quasars. Unfortunately for Arp's theory, their redshifts are wrong. His weird idea is that whatever it is a galaxy ejects that we call a quasar, it's redshift increases with time. Thus, if it is close to the galaxy it was released recently and has a low redshift while those further out have higher redshifts. Since we can't see in 3D how we are to determine which are close to it I don't know. The example Kanipe and Webb gives seems to rely on simple 2D angular distance which makes no sense to me. Maybe I'm missing something. In any case using 2D distances, the redshifts appear rather random in this image. Many more are just off the edges of my image in all directions. They too have a similar random spread of redshift values.

Several galaxy clusters are found in the image. The one marked GC 3.0 is an estimated 3 billion light years distant and has some 40 galaxies within a radius of 2.15 minutes of arc. The label is placed at the center coordinate. In the past, with an annotated image I labeled galaxies with a G, quasars with a Q etc. Recently I've received complaints that they couldn't find what a "G 0.35" was in any catalog. For this one, if it is a galaxy only the distance in billions of light years is noted. Some objects NED lists both as a quasar and an Ultraviolet Excess Source (UvES). In some cases, it lists the quasar designation first and other UvES first. I assume this is due to positional differences of a fraction of a second of arc rather than a preference. I think it safe to consider them quasars, even those only listed as UvES. In any case, if both were used I show both in the order NED listed them.

The annotated image shows only two galaxies closer than the Arp 201 group. I say group since two other galaxies in the image are at a similar redshift distance so it is likely that all 4 are related. Other than these 6 galaxies, everything else NED had a redshift value for, are over a billion light years distant (other than the 4 asteroids of course). Oddly, all 4 asteroids are bunched in the lower left quadrant.

After I wrote the above Jeff Kanipe sent me an image from the VV catalog that appears to show a connection between the two galaxies and is likely the cause for Arp's comment. Comparing the image to the POSS 1 plates it appears if you enhance greatly certain pixels in that digitized image you get exactly the same "connection". To do this you have to not similarly enhance other pixels of these values over the image. I tried taking many deep images in H alpha, blue and red light, far deeper than the POSS 1 plates and failed to see even a hint of this connection. I enhanced them every which way but no such connection appeared. I think the VV image may be due to overactive processing of grain in the POSS 1 plates. I've attached the VV image Jeff sent me so you can do your own comparison. Note the connection is brighter in this image than the plume both Arp and I imaged. It does, if real, indicate this plume comes from the southern galaxy. But why the SDSS, Arp nor I or any other image I found show this "brighter" feature? Could it be polarized? That I couldn't test. I have no information on the particulars of the VV image.

Arp's image
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp201.jpeg

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

Related Designations for ARP201

ARP202

Arp 202 is a pair of interacting galaxies about 150 million light-years from us in southern Lynx. Arp classed them under Galaxies not classifiable as E or S; Material ejected from nuclei. I'm not sure what "material" he is referring to. He comments; "Faint tail from small galaxy". I don't know if this refers to the faint fuzz at the west end of it or the three objects that trail to the west. The first is just a star, at least it isn't in the SDSS. The other two are separate galaxies per the SDSS though no redshift is provided. To me, they appear far distant galaxies though the Kanipe-Webb book considers this the tail. I see no difference between these two and a third galaxy directly below the eastern (middle of the three objects) galaxy. Arp became obsessed with the idea of galaxies ejecting objects and it appears his opinion of this pair may have colored by this concept. A note at NED says; "Faint fragments to east of smaller object." Seems no one really knows what Arp was referring to.

Arp 202 is composed of two galaxies NGC 2719 and 2719A. Both are classed as Im pec. The third major galaxy in the image is the nice two arm spiral, NGC 2724, SAB(s)c, with a redshift that puts it about 5 million light-years further away than Arp 202. Such a difference is immaterial so it is considered a member of the same group as Arp 202. There are two small galaxies to its right. The red one has a redshift indicating a distance of a bit over 1.4 billion light-years. Oddly, the blue spiral above it isn't in the NED SDSS database. It has hundreds of far fainter galaxies in this field but not this rather bright one. Nor could I find any entry for it at NED or SIMBAD.

The small elongated almost double looking galaxy SE of Arp 202 is SDSS J090028.22+354009.8, also a member of the Arp 202 system. The blue spindle galaxy NE of Arp 202 is SDSS J090029.38+354840.6 and is also a member of the Arp 202 group. Halfway between Arp 202 and the last galaxy is a very orange galaxy just above a brighter blue star. This galaxy is SDSS J090029.38+354840.6 and is about 1.4 billion light-years distant.

In keeping with the trend that blue is a member of the Arp 202 group and red isn't we come to SDSS J090043.64+354829.0 directly east of the blue spindle. It is 1.1 billion light-years away. The relatively large red spindle NW of Arp 202 is SDSS J085935.91+355242.6 and it is almost 1.4 billion light-years from us as is SDSS J085939.37+355413.7, the round red galaxy to its northeast. The spindle galaxy is very unsymmetrical with a far fatter and brighter disk to the SE than to the NW of the core. I wonder what caused that. Is the disk warped so we see it more face on to the SE or is it really less massive to the NW? Between the spindle at 1.1 billion light-years and Arp 202, much nearer the former is another rather bright reddish galaxy. It is SDSS J085943.03+355048.9 at a bit under 1 billion light-years.

I've made an annotated image with the distances in billions of light-years noted. Several other galaxies and a quasar are in the image that are also noted on this image beside these I've mentioned. The interesting thing is that one of the galaxies is actually more distant, not by much, than one of the quasars in the image. Both are over 3 billion light years distant. But the quasar at 8.4 billion light years is a lot further away. Of course, Arp likely wouldn't agree and might say they were emitted by Arp 202 rather recently. The most distant quasar in the image is also the brightest. This Arp would jump on instantly. Its redshift puts it at 11.65 billion light-years away. The photons I captured have traveled more than twice the age of our solar system and possibly longer than our galaxy even existed. In fact, the light left when the universe was only about 2 billion years old. It boggles the mind to think about.

One of the distant galaxies I've noted but not mentioned yet is SDSS J090107.85+353657.1 at 1.8 billion light-years near the bottom of the image. It is a 22nd magnitude galaxy hiding behind a much brighter star. You may have to enlarge the image to see that there are two objects there. The galaxy is sticking out of the western side of the star. Nearby to the NW is SDSS J090121.47+353908.0 at 1.6 billion light years that appears to be a blue star. But the magnitude and position exactly match a galaxy in the SDSS so I assume it is correct. Also, the PSF (how the light varies across the object) is typical of a galaxy and very atypical of the known stars in this part of the image. So appearances can be deceiving.

NGC 2719 was discovered on March 28, 1786 by William Herschel. It isn't in either of the Herschel 400 observing programs. NGC 2724 was found by his son John Herschel on February 7, 1832.

Arp's image is at: http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp202.jpeg

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey image of Arp 202 is at:
http://astronomerica.awardspace.com/SDSS-18/NGC2719.php

The SDSS image for NGC 2724:
http://astronomerica.awardspace.com/SDSS-18/NGC2724.php
Their filters don't show the color difference between the two galaxies on its western side that my image shows. They use a different mix of filters that does alter the color balance from what the eye would see if it could see such faint color. This helps greatly in their scientific analysis but does make for sometimes misleading images. Other times the color is reasonably correct. I've not determined why the variation.

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

Related Designations for ARP202

ARP203

Arp 203/NGC 3712 is located about 90 million light-years away in the constellation of Ursa Major just across the border from Leo. In fact, the south edge of my image is only a few seconds of arc into Ursa Major. Arp put it in his category for galaxies with material ejected from nucleus. His comment says "Faint plumes coming off both ends of bar." Is this the material? They look like plumes rather than ejected material but then Arp had the idea galaxies ejected things and plumes weren't all that well understood in the 60's when he put his atlas together. NED classes it as SB? as does the NGC project.

The "bar" is rather broken up. It consists of three bright parts. A lower elongated piece and two round pieces north of it oriented at an angle to the lower piece. Further north are two faint condensations. The northern one brighter and designated by the SDSS as a separate galaxy with no redshift given. Arp 203 does have one obvious companion or galaxy at about the same distance near the same line of sight. It is SDSS J113119.85+283125.0 at 83 million light years. It's a rather featureless galaxy that NED makes no attempt to categorize. Both are rather small galaxies. Since it is undistorted I doubt it is the cause of the plumes seen coming from Arp 203. Could it be a merger? The multiple bright blobs in the core would seem to make this a possibility. I found no papers discussing anything about its plumes other than pure descriptions. Though I didn't search very deep. Still, it seems to be a poorly studied galaxy.

NGC 3712 was discovered by William Herschel on April 11, 1785. It is in neither of the Herschel 400 observing programs. Some sources equate it with 3714 discovered by his son John on March 26, 1827. Others say John found a somewhat brighter galaxy to the southeast just out of my image. Oddly Seligman gives the position for this out of field galaxy for NGC 3712. Yet equates the two with 3712. Errors like this aren't unexpected when dealing with such a large number of objects.

In the upper left corner, you can find ZwCl 1129.4+2858, a galaxy cluster of unknown distance with 68 members in an 11' field. The label marks the center. Most that I see are to the upper left of that position. But redshift distances of galaxies within 5.5 minutes of the center all have very different values ranging from 2.3 to 5 billion light-years. At least the galaxies with redshift values are just a line of sight group rather than a true cluster of gravitationally bound galaxies. If there's a true cluster here redshift values aren't disclosing it.

Arp's image
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp203.jpeg

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL=11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP203

ARP204

If there is ever a freak show for galaxies this mess would be the headliner.

Arp 204 is a two or three galaxy mash-up in northern Camelopardalis less than 6 degrees from the pole. The VV, CGCG and CGPG catalogs call it three while NED and the UGC say it is two. Arp is mum on this having no comment. He did put it in his oddball class for galaxies with "material ejected from nuclei". What he sees as ejected from what is not mentioned. The CGPG has this note on it: "Blue post-eruptive triple galaxy, interconnected by pronounced thin bridge, length 2' south-southwest to north-northeast." Oddly, NED shows positions for only two of the three CGCG galaxies. I have to assume it is the same as the VV catalog sees but since it isn't in NED this is only a guess. NED lists the third VV member as part of a galaxy rather than a separate galaxy. It is the blue blob at the southwest end Arp 204. I've pointed these various objects out on the annotated image.

There is another interesting pair of possibly interacting galaxies, UGC 8394. While NED makes no attempt to classify any part of Arp 204 it does classify the northeastern galaxy of UGC 8394 as Sb and the southwest member as "compact". That is usually reserved for a small, mostly round, tight, nearly featureless ball of stars. This looks to me to be a rather tight spiral, possibly a dense Sa galaxy. I've never seen a compact galaxy with such a prominent spiral structure before. A note at NED says they are interacting. The NE galaxy shows a faint plume to the northeast and one to the southwest connects the two galaxies. So yes, they are likely interacting. The dense southwest galaxy is likely inflicting most of the damage. The CGPG says: "Pair of interconnected galaxies. No. 1, patchy blue compact, m_p_ = 15.7. No. 2, neutral Sb, 40" north-following No. 1, m_p_ = 17.0." NED has no redshift data on the pair, unfortunately.

South of both Arp 204 and UGC 8394 is UGC 8414, a Sm spiral about 200 million light-years distant. It appears to be somewhat closer than Arp 204. There is something just off its southeastern (lower left) arm. I can't tell for sure if it is another galaxy or just a somewhat detached star cloud of UGC 8414. There are several other galaxies in the immediate area. None are listed at NED.

At the very top of the image is UGC 8380. NED lists it as Scd: saying it would be a rather open armed spiral if we could see it more face on. Again no redshift data is available. In fact, only one other galaxy in my image has a redshift value at NED. That puts it about 2.1 billion light-years out. While NED doesn't classify this very distant galaxy, it does indicate it is a narrow line Seyfert 1 galaxy. I've listed by catalog name every galaxy NED lists for my image. When you get only a few degrees from the pole (less than 6 in this case) NED has very little coverage. The vast majority of them aren't listed at NED at all. Most that are, as you can see from the annotated image are from the 2MASS survey of galaxies with strong emission at 2 microns. This is a region that falls between normal infrared and radio frequencies.

Arp's image with the 200" scope
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp204.jpeg

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

Related Designations for ARP204

ARP205

Arp 205 is classed by Arp under "Material Ejected From Nucleus". It is also known as NGC 3448 with the nearby, very faint spiral cataloged as "companion" by Arp and UGC 6013/PGC 32740 by everyone else. I assume the "Material ejected From Nucleus" is the large bright lump somewhat disconnected from the galaxy at the upper left rather than the tidal arms. Arp made no comment to help us know what he was seeing. Kanipe and Webb don't offer any suggestions either. Radial velocity puts NGC 3448 at 70 million light years and UGC 6016 at 77 million light years. These distances are likely somewhat wrong as the redshift of both has been altered by their passage by each other. They are likely closer than these measurements imply. UGC 6013 is described by a note at NED as being a disrupted galaxy. This certainly is possible.

Arp included a classification for galaxies that he thought resembled the integral sign. Arp 205 seems to have a dust lane that resembles the integral sign better than any of his galaxies do. NGC 3448 was discovered by William Herschel on April 17, 1789.

Above and a slight bit right of NGC 3448 is the galaxy cluster ZwCl 1051.4+5440. It has two major elliptical galaxies but only one, the one on the left, has attracted a following. The one on the right has only one obvious nearby companion. At the very lower left corner of the full image, a few outlying members of another cluster ZwCl 1053.4+5427 are seen. The former is about 2.1 billion light-years away light travel time while the latter has yet to have its distance measured that I can find. Just not enough grad students to do the work it would seem. The entire field is full of faint, very distant galaxies most of which have not been measured for their distance.

Arp's image: http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp205.jpeg

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

Related Designations for ARP205

ARP206

ARP 206/NGC 3432 is cataloged by Arp as a spiral with "material ejected from the nuclei." That apparently refers to the blob of material at the upper left end of the galaxy as all others in this category have similar detached pieces though he has a category for detached arms that would seem to also fit. The distortion seems caused by interaction with UGC 05983 a dwarf galaxy at the lower right end of the galaxy. The distance to Arp 206 is also rather hard to come by. Redshift data says 40 to 50 million light years though since these are likely orbiting each other this value is somewhat questionable. This seems to be one of the lesser studied Arp galaxies. Anyone looking for a Ph.D. thesis might find good hunting here. Edit: When I wrote this in 2008 I didn't realize how interesting it was -- see below.

The galaxy was discovered on March 19, 1787 by William Herschel. It is in the original Herschel 400 observing program. My note on it from April 15, 1985 with my 10" f/5 at 50 to 150x under rather bad humidity reads: "Large, edge on galaxy evenly bright. Hard to see without averted vision due to humidity. At 50x its easier to see but much of it is lost in 12th magnitude field stars."

This is where my story ended in 2008. Then, nearly 10 years later I learned what an amazing story I totally missed.

This image was taken March 21, 2008 UT. At the time I did no research on my images. Big mistake, especially in this case. If I'd even compared my image to Arp's I'd have seen a star in the galaxy in my image but not his. It is annotated in the cropped image. It is SN 2000ch. Yeah, 2000 not 2008. SN don't stay bright for 8 years. So something very unusual is going on here. When seen in 2000 it was considered a blue variable star in our galaxy but once redshift was taken it became a nova in this galaxy. But it was too bright for any nova. That caused it to be reclassified as a type IIn supernova and got its SN name. The only problem is it has blown several more times while SN blow up totally leaving nothing to erupt a second time. It was not seen in February 2008 but was when I took my image a month later. It was also seen in October of that year. I find nothing between my image and the October one. So what is going on here? It is now thought to be an LBV, Luminous Blue Variable. These erupt several times with periods of months to decades and longer. Eta Carina is the most well-known example with a very long period. Eventually, it is thought, they will blow in a true supernova. Why they have these outbursts is unknown. In my case, I just happened to catch it while in eruption. One paper shows a period of 200 to 225 days. If so, it faded between my March image and the October image. How long they stay bright seems to vary as well. Here are links to two papers others pointed out to me about this.
http://inspirehep.net/record/857000/plots
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.1086/382997.pdf

I totally missed this until Derek Santiago took an image of it in 2018 https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/608373-supernova-imposter/ , saw the object again in eruption and did some investigation. He found it likely an LBV but not much else. He posted it and others dug in and found the links above. Not knowing anything about this I just happened to take my image during an outburst. Dumb luck to have caught one of its outbursts.

Arp's image: http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp206.jpeg

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=1x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP206

ARP207

Arp 207 is located in western Draco near the border with Camelopardalis. Redshift puts it about 100 million light-years away. Arp put it in his category for galaxies with material ejected from the nucleus. He seemed to think some features we now consider to be tidal in nature to be material that somehow the core ejected; rather than stars, dust and gas pulled from the outer reaches of galaxies by tidal forces. He left no comment on this one making his feelings on this one somewhat vague other than its category.

I found very little in the literature. Vorontsov and Velyaminov put it in their category for galaxy pairs with satellites on a stem -- Bottle forms. They describe this form as having "...dwarf satellites connected to the primary by a short thin filament, mostly normal to the surface of the latter. This recalls a mushroom sitting on its stem. It is noteworthy that most primaries appear to be spheroidal, not spiral." However, Arp 207 (VV58) is not listed as being typical of the group, likely because the primary is likely a spiral. So they consider it a pair of interacting galaxies, one a dwarf. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/bib_query?1977A%26AS...28....1V -- a 42 meg PDF so be warned.

The UGC catalog has a different opinion. It is UGC 5050 in their catalog and carries this notation: "Asymmetric -- Short jet-shaped feature in position angle 50." No mention of a dwarf galaxy being involved. But the position angle bothers me. Normally position angle is measured from celestial north (top of my image) through east (left in my image). This gives me a position angle for the jet of about 226 degrees. If measured from the end of the jet to the main galaxy that would be about 46 degrees. Odd way to do it, however.

I prefer the VV catalog take on this one. Note that the entire system is slightly curved with the core slightly north of a line connecting both ends of the system. This would indicate some sort of interaction.

To the northeast (seen in the enlarged cropped image) is CGCG 350-026. NED has nothing on it. Is it related to Arp 207? It certainly looks odd. Reminds me of a distorted Star Trek logo. Is that a star north of the core or part of the galaxy? An odd V-shaped (greater than symbol) comes in from the east ending in a bright region west of the core. Unfortunately, I was unable to find an image of this one on the net with greater resolution than my shot. For now, I'm calling it the Star Trek Logo Galaxy. http://www.beyondhollywood.com/uploads/2011/09/Star-Trek-Logo.png rotated 90 degrees clockwise. Or maybe a NASA logo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nasa-logo.gif .

NED has no distance data on any other galaxy in the image nor are many of them even listed. This far north, 76.5°, coverage is very poor.

Arp's image with the 200" telescope has south up while I post my images north up. The notch in Arp's images usually indicates north in his atlas (at least one exception). Note how the field star partly lost in the overexposed galaxy appears out of round in his image. I can't explain this other than an illusion due to how the emulsion he used reacts to "flashing". This effect caused an asteroid track in Arp 192 to appear curved. The star is round in my image.

Arp's image:
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp207.jpeg

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

Related Designations for ARP207

ARP208

Arp 208, also known as CGCG 252-007, is a pair of interacting galaxies a bit over 400 million light-years away seen against northern Hercules. Redshift data is available only for the eastern galaxy. Arp classed this pair under: Galaxies (not classifiable as S or E), material ejected from nuclei. We now know what he was seeing were pieces tidally pulled from these galaxies rather than ejected. Individually they are cataloged as MCG+08-31-010 and MCG+08-31-011, left to right. The Kanipe-Webb book though has them reversed. While that does fit normal RA ordering it doesn't match any of the catalogs I consulted. There's no consensus on how to classify these two. Most either don't try or say S?. VV catalog calls both irregular. The edge on nearby is MCG+08-31-09, an Sd spiral with the same redshift as Arp 208 so a nearby member. Arp had no comment on this entry and I find little useful on it in the literature. CGCG catalog considers this a 3 galaxy system with the note: "Triple system [with] bridges." I don't see any sign of a bridge to the edge on spiral. NED lists the western part (MCG+08-31-11) as being a rejected quasar rather than a galaxy. Gives a photometric distance of 7 billion light-years and a brightness of 20.9. That's very strange series of what appears to be mistakes.

The lack of information continues to the entire field. NED has no redshift or other distance data on any other galaxy in the image. I debated about an annotated image and decided to post one with names of galaxies. There's one Quasar in the image, PC 1650+4713. It is noted by distance in the lower left corner. I've noted a few obvious galaxies that aren't listed in NED or the SDSS. I find this is rather common. I don't know why. This image was taken through a rather thick haze which created a nasty haze around many stars making them look like galaxies. Usually, the PSF of the object will give away a galaxy. Only those with no entry and a PSF that was obviously that of a galaxy are marked "No Entry". Most others are stars with nasty halos. The haze also limited my image to about magnitude 21.75 rather than my normal 22.5 to 23. Still, it stabilized my seeing quite a bit allowing me to reproduce this image at 0.67 seconds per pixel rather than my usual 1" though I've provided a 1" per pixel version as well. The annotated image is at 1" per pixel however to save bandwidth.

Arp's image:
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp208.jpeg

14" LX 200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP208

ARP209

Arp 209/NGC 6052/64 is a rather well studied Luminous IR galaxy. To me, it is simply a mess of galaxy parts in Hercules, just north of the famous galaxy clusters in this constellation. It is about 220 million light-years away. Arp put it in his class of galaxies with irregularities, absorption and resolution. His comment read: "Chaotic with loops." I really don't see those "loops" in his image, but plenty of knots. This galaxy was recorded twice in the NGC catalog, not because it was recognized as two galaxies but because of a position error. NGC 6052's position was the more accurate so is the designation usually found for this galaxy pair. It was first found by William Herschel on June 11, 1784 but he got the position somewhat wrong resulting in the NGC 6064 designation. 80 years later on July 2, 1864 got the position right resulting in the NGC 6052 designation.

In Arp's time, most papers considered it one galaxy though a few said it was two interacting or merging spiral galaxies. Today is it clearly a pair of galaxies that are merging. The attached HST image made from two plates at the HST legacy site clearly shows one to be a face on spiral. The other, to its left, is mostly a vertical strip of stars. Some papers say it is also a spiral, others an irregular galaxy. NED calls the obvious spiral on the right an Sc. One place it adds Pec. It does the same for the left galaxy. Hard to agree or disagree with that. One paper says: "The interpretation of Mkn 297 as the merger of two disk galaxies is inconsistent with the findings by Burenkov (1988), who concludes from spectroscopic observations that the abundance gradients of nitrogen and oxygen are only consistent with one spiral galaxy; the second galaxy is probably an irregular."

In any case, those knots, as well as the bright cores, are areas of tremendous star formation. Most are O to A0 one paper says.

William Herschel discovered this pair on June 11, 1784 causing Dreyer to list it as NGC 6064 in the NGC. On July 2, 1864 Albert Marth found it. Dreyer gave his entry the NGC 6052 entry. The HST take on this pair is at http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1552a/

In processing the color for this one I thought I had really screwed it up. The Sloan image shows the galaxy to be shades of blue with no hint of a golden core. But my color came out very different. Nowhere was it as blue (likely the vivid blue is due to UV light from the O stars) and it had hints of reddish areas. Then I assembled a color image from HST data at the HST legacy site and those resolved red dust lanes and some apparent H alpha regions right where my reds were located. So I made no adjustments and went with what I had. I do need to redo this under better skies. I'd originally decided this one couldn't be saved but after the great results of Arp 220 taken under similar conditions, I decided to give it a go. I'm glad I did but still a bit unsure if the color is right. I couldn't find any other color images on the net of this one. HST image made from a deep red filter of 707nm and a green filter at 555nm. The latter was assigned blue and a pseudo green was created. This was the best I could do with the filtered images available. Obviously, those colors are not correct. Still, they tend to reflect what I got for what that's worth.

As usual, I prepared an annotated image showing distances in billions of light years to galaxies and quasars. One galaxy near the bottom right of center looks quite active. It is 2MASX J16043802+2024143 so strong at 2 microns and is also known as NVSS J160436+202422 (NRAO VLA Sky Survey) so a strong radio galaxy. Lots going on in this one but I found little else on it. So it is just labeled by name. Further west (right) is a trio of galaxies, none with redshift data and the northern, noted by a question mark isn't even in NED's database! I tend to find one an image without really trying.

Arp's image
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp209.jpeg

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

Related Designations for ARP209