ARP240

Arp 240 consists of two spiral galaxies pulling material out of each other making a bridge between the two. Arp classified them under "Appearance of Fission". This is the same classification of "The Mice" and "Antennae" galaxies. Located some 300 million light-years from us I didn't get a lot of detail but you can see the bridge that connects the two galaxies. The two galaxies are NGC 5257 (right) and NGC 5258. About the same time I was taking this Hubble released a series of such colliding galaxies that included this pair. Here's a link to Hubble's image of this pair with a bit more about them.
http://hubblesite.org/image/2291/news_release/2008-16g

NGC 5257 (right galaxy) is listed at NED as SAB(s)b pec;HII LIRG LIRG stands for Luminous Infra Red Galaxy. This usually means there's a lot of star formation going on behind dust that the stars heat creating the infrared light. NGC 5258 on the left is classified by NED as SA(s)b: pec;HII LINER. They were discovered by William Herschel on May 13, 1793 but didn't make either of the Herschel 400 observing programs.

Arp's image: http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp240.jpeg

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

Related Designations for ARP240

ARP241

Arp 241/UGC 9425 is sometimes known as Segner's Wheel. Looks more like spinning tadpoles to me. It is located in central Bootes at a distance of about 475 million light-years. Arp classed it under "Appearance of Fission." It's more a dance of death and rebirth as these two galaxies swirl about each other and likely will merge in the future to become an elliptical galaxy. The merger may have already happened but we won't see it for several hundred million years. Arp saw it as appearing to be the reverse, one galaxy that appears to be splitting into two. That doesn't necessarily mean he thought this was what was happening. He wanted to draw attention to unusual galaxies and the puzzles they create. Such a description could serve this purpose. I just don't know.

According to Kanipe and Webb the name "Segner's Wheel" is probably named for "...the 18th-century Slovak scientist Janos Andras Segner, considered the father of the water turbine. Segner also built observatories at two of his academic posts." I'd never heard any of this before.

A third galaxy at the same redshift is seen to the northwest of Arp 241. It doesn't appear to have interacted with Arp 241.

The center of the 2 billion light-year galaxy cluster Abell 1944 is a few minutes south of Arp 245. I've marked the center on the annotated image. Most of the galaxies appear to the west of the center, however. At least I assume most of these faint galaxies are part of the cluster. NED shows it as 10 minutes in diameter. To its northwest is another Abell cluster, Abell 1941, at a distance of 1.2 billion light-years and a size of 14 minutes. I don't really see it but have also marked its center as defined in NED. Then to make things even more interesting there's the ZwCl 1435.5+3037 galaxy cluster toward the southwest end of the chain of galaxies of Abell 1944. It is said to be 17 minutes in diameter and contain some 180 members. It is shown as Distance Class VD. That stands for Very Distant, Extremely Distant is the only class more distant but I can't translate this into redshift or a time travel distance. It likely is much the same cluster but with a larger cutoff radius as Abell 1944. Anyone know for sure?

Just to add to the galaxy cluster confusion further to the southwest we come to the galaxy cluster MaxBCG J219.37724+30.37448 which is shown centered on a galaxy of the same name which is noted at NED as being a bright cluster galaxy. The cluster has an estimated distance of 2 billion light-years, no given diameter and a member count of 19. So how does this fit the others? My head hurts. But it gets worse. Just off the bottom of my image almost directly below Abell 1944 is Abell 1943 which is 12 minutes in diameter and thus extends into the southern part of the image. There's no distance for it other than the note it is distance class 6. This puts its members in the 17.3 to 18 magnitude range for the tenth brightest cluster member. Since it is richness class 2 -- 80 to 129 members I'm not sure how that helps much other than the most distant class is 7 for all below 18th magnitude. How this translates to distance is beyond me. On average I suppose fainter is more distant. Is that true of the 10th brightest member? Now I really have a headache.

Migraine time! In the upper right corner is the galaxy and galaxy cluster MaxBCG J219.17017+30.59602. The anchor galaxy is quite large but has no redshift measurement that I could find. The estimate for the cluster is 1.5 billion light-years but all around it are galaxies of 1.3 billion light-years by redshift. Are these members? The cluster is described in NED as having 15 members, no size is given. Several more galaxy clusters are to be found around the edges of this image that likely extend into it but enough is enough. I've used up my painkiller supply just getting this far.

I do find it surprising there were no quasars in the image considering how deep it goes. One was just off the image to the south but NED listed none within the image. But as there are a couple very distant galaxies at 4 and 4.2 billion light-years in the frame.

One blue frame was severely hurt by haze or something. I used it anyway but maybe I shouldn't have. It seems to have hurt color more than helping. I didn't go back and try with only the good blue frame or retake it.

Arp's image
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp241.jpeg

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

Related Designations for ARP241

ARP242

ARP 242/NGC 4676/The Mice is a famous pair of interacting galaxies in northern Coma Berenices about 300 light-years distant. While the NGC designation applies to both galaxies the northern one is IC 819 and the southern IC 820. This apparently was because William Herschel saw it as one object though did note it as a "possibly bi-nuclear" nebula when he found it on March 13, 1785 but Rudolf Spitaler recognized two when he recorded it over a century later on March 20, 1892. He recorded it as IC 0819 and IC 0820. It didn't make either of the Herschel 400 observing programs.

Arp put it in his category for galaxies with the appearance of fission. It should be the appearance of colliding. While they are obviously interacting as shown by their long tidal tails but I can't say from the image if they are actually colliding or just passing by. Most papers say they either have already or will collide and merge after whirling about their center of gravity several times. NED classifies the northern galaxy simply as Irr AGN and the southern one as SB(s)0/a pec AGN. Arps comment on this entry reads: "Very thin bright tail from north nucleus which has strong absorption."

One simulation of their interaction shows they will merge the next time around. While seen from our perspective you can see the "straight" tail of the northern galaxy is straight only due to our perspective. It is really broad and curved the same as the southern one. Its brightness may be mainly due to it appearing much thinner from our perspective. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjjRfOT87Wc A Hubble image can be seen at http://hubblesite.org/image/1191/news_release/2002-11

This data was taken in 2007 and reprocessed several times. Fortunately, it was taken on a good night when I could work at 0.5" per pixel as my imaging skills were poor in 2007. Reprocessing can help but can't make up for my poor techniques back in 2007. I need to retake this one. For now, this will have to do.

Arp's image: http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp242.jpeg

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x20x1' RGB=2x10'x2, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP242

ARP243

Arp 243, aka NGC 2623 is thought to be the result of a merger of two or maybe three galaxies. Arp, however, classes it under "Galaxies (not classifiable as S or E): Appearance of fission. Fission is the splitting of an object while fusion is the joining. So if mainstream science is right he has this exactly backward though he is talking about appearance not necessarily what's really going on. He does think disturbed galaxies like this one eject objects, especially what we call quasars. To him, quasars are nearby objects ejected from disturbed galaxies and the redshift somehow relates to their age of creation. Something about electrons gaining mass through "communication" with the rest of the universe. He actually puts it in scientific terms that take him out of the total crackpot class but it did cost him his access to the 200" scope and sent him packing to Europe when his ideas seemed a bit more accepted. To him, low mass electrons would show spectral lines with less energy than those created at the time of the Big Bang (another concept he doesn't accept the same way as other astronomers). Thus, the lines appear redshifted same as they would due to distance. Since electrons can be created in atom smashers and those show no hint of low-mass his theories don't get much attention though he claims such electrons, being created from "old" protons colliding, this is to be expected, it is only those created out of pure energy that somehow aren't tainted by "old mass" that would show this effect. OK, maybe he is a crackpot. Anyway, this idea of galaxies ejecting things, especially disturbed ones, does add to his fission classification.

NED classes it as simply Pec; LINER, LIRG Seyfert 2. Meaning its central region is very active creating lots of stars heating dust to make it a luminous IR Galaxy. The problem is it has no central core that anyone can identify. Seems it hasn't settled down enough from the merger(s) for one to fully develop. Normally I see LINER and Seyfert 2 galaxies but it is one or the other. Sometimes papers argue over which it is. Here we have both. Again, an indication of an, as yet, incomplete merger? My guess anyway. Notes at NED are interesting here. One says: "NGC 2623 (Arp 243), appearing eighth in the Toomre sequence, is, like ARP 220, a superluminous IRAS galaxy, and is also very bright in the radio. Very long tails are visible but the central masses have become indistinguishable. Only one true nucleus is thought to exist."

Another: "NGC 2623 is a well-studied triple system included in Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies (Arp 1966). Bright tidal tails are observed in both the optical and near-infrared; these tails suggest that a merger has occurred. The parent nuclei have not been resolved in either the radio or near-infrared."

A final note: "NGC 2623 NGC 2623 is a nearly completed merger showing an r^1/4^ profile at K band (Wright et al. 1990; Stanford & Bushouse 1991; Chitre & Jog 2002) and two long tidal tails."

There seems a bit of a discrepancy as to its distance. Its redshift would indicate a distance of about 260 million light-years. But in 1999 a type 1a supernova was seen in this galaxy, SN 1999gd. These are considered a "standard candle" for estimating distance as it is thought astronomers have a good handle on how to determine their true brightness. Since they are thought to have about the same brightness. There's some variation due to the "metal" content and other factors such as rotation rate of the star but this is rather easily handled. Using SN 1999gd as a reference the galaxy is further away than its redshift would indicate, about 332 million light-years. A rather large difference. The field has a smattering of distant galaxies and one galaxy cluster toward the east side that shows as a group of tiny orange ovals arranged at various angles way behind a few blue foreground stars. It is MaxBCG J129.83536+25.77318 and is about 2.8 billion light-years distant. It is listed as having 17 members, though I see more than that. The MaxBCG catalog contains some 13,800 galaxy clusters found on analysis of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data. They combed the data for galaxies with the same red color in a small area. It is thought to be fairly accurate at finding clusters as intergalactic reddening should be rather consistent over a small area of sky. Thus a lot of galaxies with the same reddening are likely at the same distance thus indicating a true cluster.

The only other galaxy of any angular size in the image is the large red elliptical north east of Arp 234. It is 2MASX J08383858+2550212 at 1.1 billion light-years. Nearly all the other galaxies in the image I could find data on are at least that distant. There is one lonely quasar at a bit over 10 billion light years in the image shining like one of many dim blue stars in the image. I mention it as Arp thinks way too many quasars are found around his disturbed galaxies. Though in his theory those near the galaxy have a large redshift and those further are older and thus the electrons more massive and thus they show a lower redshift. Since none of those he cited originally have a redshift even half of this one and it isn't all that close to the galaxy it just doesn't fit his theory. To find it follow the line of the lower right tidal arm past a small vertical lenticular galaxy. It is the first nearly 19th magnitude blue star after that. A bit right and up from a brighter blue star.

ARP 243 is located in Cancer. My image was taken November 26, 2008. ARP 243 was discovered On January 19, 1885 by Édouard Stephan.

Arp's excellent image of this galaxy is at:
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp243.jpeg
SDSS image:
http://astronomerica.awardspace.com/SDSS-17/NGC2623.php

While Hubble has imaged this galaxy, no cleaned up color image of it has been released that I could find. So I went into their data base, found filtered images that could make a fairly good color image and made my own. It was exposed for the core, the tidal wings were severely under exposed so I only used the high-resolution WFPC 2 small chip for this image. It is a bit reduced from the original 800x800 image, mostly due to my cropping it but I did reduce it about 10% as well to hide some cosmetic defects thanks to cosmic rays that I couldn't clone out without making it obvious. Still, I think it shows the core region very well. It is oriented north up same as my image so you should be able to at least recognize major features in my image. Due to the filters not being true RGB filters, it is way too blue, I just didn't have red and green data that I could manipulate to give a "true color" image. The images weren't taken to create a true color image and not knowing the shape of each filter's skirts after a lot of trial and error, mostly the latter, this is the best I could do.

Edit: Since that was written HST images of it have been released. A good example is found here: http://cseligman.com/text/atlas/ngc2623hst.jpg

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

Related Designations for ARP243

ARP244

Arp 244/NGC4038-9 are almost too low for my scope to see. Certainly too low to see clearly being below my normal 15 degree south limit. But they are so interesting I had to try anyway. These are known as the Antenna, clamshell or Ring Tail Galaxies. NGC 4038 and 4039 are a much-pictured pair of colliding galaxies. Massive star birth has been triggered by the collision and huge tidal arms (the antennae) pulled out of them. When galaxies collide the dust and gas do collide but the stars do not. They are just far too small and too far apart for that to happen. But the gravity field is so strong that it can tear stars out of the galaxies and throw them across the universe as seen in the two tails of these galaxies. If your monitor can see into the darkness well enough you can see the lower (longer tail) actually starts to curve back on itself. These two are thought to be about 65 million light-years away in the constellation of Corvus. The Hubble telescope took this photo of the upper galaxy in my shot (NGC 4039). http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/1997/34/images/d/formats/full_jpg.jpg and http://cseligman.com/text/atlas/ngc4038noao.jpg
Hubble can resolve individual stars in a galaxy at this distance thanks to not having to look through our atmosphere.

Due to clouds, I had very limited color data which shows up as rather blotchy in color. Two asteroids decided to wander through my view
Upper left: (15297) 1992 CF Mag 16.4
Lower left: (54283) 2000 JG48 Mag 17.2

The "stars" you see in the galaxies are really huge clusters of supermassive stars created by the collision. Some are still shrouded in their Hydrogen and dust cloud from which they formed. The hydrogen glowing its characteristic pink-red color. Others have completely used up the hydrogen and glow blue though some hydrogen emission can be seen on their edges. Note I've pushed the color to extremes here to show these features. The true colors would be much more muted if your eyes could actually see them. Which they never could from any vantage point as they would be just too faint.

The galaxies were discovered by William Herschel on February 7, 1785 and are in the original Herschel 400 observing program. My notes from that made on April 16, 1985 using my 10" f/5 at 50x hampered by how low it was even in Nebraska and the extinction from high humidity reads "Large, fairly easy object, mottled a little brighter toward the center. This was limited to NGC 4038 as 4039 wasn't in the program. I didn't see the tails.

This was taken back early 2007 when my imaging techniques were poor. It is severely photon starved. I've had it on the redo list for years but conditions just haven't made this possible. Until then this will have to do.

Arp's image: http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp244.jpeg

14" LX 200R @ f/10, L=6x5' RGB=1x5', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for ARP244

ARP245

Arp 245/NGC 2992-3 is a great pair of interacting galaxies in Hydra. Redshift puts them at about 125 million light-years but most papers are going with the Tully-Fisher distance of 100 million light-years. In any case, they are close and large enough to actually make an interesting pair to image. Arp put them in his category galaxies with the appearance of fission. I think he only meant they appeared to be dividing not that they really were. Of course, they are now known to be interacting galaxies that may be merging rather than splitting. Arp's comment on these is; "Very faint diffuse connection from both ends of N spiral to S spiral."

The N spiral is NGC 2992 and the S spiral is NGC 2993. Both were discovered by William Herschel on February 8, 1785 but aren't in either of the Herschel 400 observing programs. While NGC 2992 appears red in my image and is indeed a strong IR source it is also a very strong UV source and well seen in the X-ray spectrum as well. It has a highly variable Seyfert Core. Papers argue between Seyfert 1, 1.9 and 2 status with 1.9 being seen most. All of this is rather expected from such a strongly interacting pair. I don't know if its overall red color is due to stars or dust absorption. I suspect the latter. NED classes it as Sa pec while the NGC project just says Pec. NED gives the northern plume the designation of Arp 245N listing it as a tidal tail.

NGC 2993 is a near face-on spiral with a large bright core, some say is double though I was unable to see this. It is much bluer than its companion. It too has a lot of star birth going on in its core. NED also says it is Sa Pec with HII emissions. The NGC project again says simply Pec. Of the tidal plume between the two galaxies, it is hard to say which galaxy it comes from, possibly both I would suspect. I say this because the plume seems to change from slightly reddish to slightly blue as you get closer to the blue galaxy. The change is rather abrupt in fact. I'd love to see this pair from another angle to see what these tidal plumes are doing. Is the "connecting" plume really connecting or does it go behind or in front of NGC 2992? There is a lot of papers listed at NED, I could take a month to read them all, maybe the answer is in them someplace my quick overview missed. Unfortunately, this pair is barely above 15 degrees south so has rather strong atmospheric extinction. Didn't help this wasn't taken on a good night like Arp 244. Thus the connection between the two is very weak in my image. Another I need to retake but never have.

While this field is not covered by the Sloan survey a couple of unusual objects are among the few NED has data on. One is the very blue star just to the east of the tip of the northern plume of NGC 2992. NED gives it catalog listings. UITBOC 1574 (Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope Bright Object Catalog) saying it is a visual source which tells us nothing useful. Another name for it is [BOB94] 0943-1403 (Bowen+Osmer+Blades catalog of galaxies and quasars) which lists it as a quasar. So far so good. Many quasars are very blue. In fact when they were still a mystery one name for the blue ones was blue stellar object. But then we come to its redshift which says it is only 20 million light-years distant. Normally we'd easily see the galaxy it was in at that distance and the quasar itself should be exceedingly bright not magnitude 17.5. Maybe it is just a super blue star? Redshift error? (I had to go back and correct my typo for "shift" -- I left out the "f" -- maybe I was trying to tell myself something.)

Less confusing is the third galaxy in the group, the thin flat one to the southwest (lower right). It is FGC 938/RFGC 1621. Either indicate it is an extremely flat galaxy (FGC=Flat Galaxy Catalog). Its redshift is also about 125 million light-years so it may be a member of the same group as Arp 245, just not close enough to be interacting. It is classed Scd (as are most entries to these catalogs). How some spirals get to be so flat with virtually no central bulge is still a mystery. Since the size of the bulge seems related to the size of the black hole at a spiral galaxy's core does this mean it has no black hole in its core? Just an unusually small one? I don't know. Anyone out there seen anything on this?

Only 2 other objects, both galaxies, are listed in NED with redshift data. Both can be seen near Arp 245. Directly above the blue star/quasar is a small smudge of a galaxy. It is somewhat blue in color. It is [DBS2000] J094545.55-141623.7 at 1.44 billion light-years. That's the only designation NED has; DBS stands for Duc+Brinks+Springel. The other galaxy is up and to the left of the last one. It is the third (bottom) object of a small arc of two stars and the orange galaxy. The upper star is orange while the middle star is white. The galaxy is quite orange. It is 2MASX J09455121-1415430 with precisely the same redshift (z=0.111000) as the other galaxy and thus also 1.44 billion light-years distant. None of the other galaxies in the image have redshift data and most aren't even listed at NED.

Arp's image:
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp245.jpeg

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

Related Designations for ARP245

ARP246

Arp 246/NGC 7837-8 is a pair of spiral galaxies Arp put in is very oddly named category for galaxies with the appearance of fission. As with all others in this category, I don't begin to see anything suggesting these are due to the division of what was once one galaxy. Arp apparently didn't either as his comment reads: "May not be physically connected." So why he put it here rather than in his double galaxy class I don't know. If his object had an NGC number he normally noted this yet for this pair that column in his atlas is blank. The pair was discovered on November 29, 1864 by Albert Marth.

The galaxy pair is located in Pisces. Of the two only NGC 7838 on the left has a redshift in NED. That puts it 510 million light-years away. Thus we can't begin to determine if the two are interacting. (Edit: Since this was written NED shows 7837 as being 470 million light-years distant by redshift. The difference may not indicate a real distance difference. It is quite likely these two are related but are they interacting?) While the field contains 7 NGC galaxies, including the two in Arp 246, only three have redshift values. The two show a much lower redshift. (Edit: A few more have distance or classification data at NED. The annotated image has been updated to show this new data.)

There are a lot of galaxies in the image, but only a few are listed at NED. All that are noted on the annotated image along with the three known redshift light travel distances in billions of light-years. There is one asteroid in the image, 2000 SC290 at an estimated magnitude of 19.5. Perspective has it traveling very slowly so the trail is short and bright compared to a typical 19.5 magnitude asteroid. The lack of a number usually indicates that it hasn't yet completed one full orbit. If this applies here this one must orbit out near Jupiter. It was only a bit under 14 degrees from Jupiter which is too close to be a Trojan asteroid of Jupiter.

Arp's image
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp246.jpeg

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

Related Designations for ARP246

ARP247

Arp 247 is a pair of interacting galaxies; IC 2339 and IC 2338, left to right and top to bottom. A common arm connects them. At least Arp seems to say this when he says: "Spirals have common arm, N spiral arm continues NE." The latter comment seems to refer to the southern arm of IC 2339 that goes north and continues as a faint tidal streamer far beyond the galaxy. He seems to have missed a similar streamer going mostly west and a bit north on the other side. It is fainter and out of his image. Apparently, he didn't know it was there. It is classed under his category: Galaxies (not classifiable as S or E); Appearance of fission. Odd but his comment calls them spirals then he puts them in a class saying they aren't identifiable as spiral or elliptical. I see several problems here. One is that while the arm may appear "common" to both galaxies this is possibly a perspective issue and if seen at a different angle one is likely in front of the other and we are seeing an overlapping of two separate arms. Since colliding galaxies can merge but not split as they are already separate objects this might be fusion (a merger in progress) but certainly not fission. Or is he referring to that tidal arm as splitting off? We now know these almost always collapse back into the merging galaxies though some stars may never return, most do. At least in the simulations I've seen or run.

Redshift data on both galaxies shows virtually the same radial velocity which translates to a distance of about a quarter of a billion light-years. This strengthens the idea they will merge in the future. Or already have and the light just needs a quarter of a billion years to get here to tell us. Actually, due to the expansion of the universe, it will take a bit longer than that to reach us through the ever-growing universe. The pair is part of what is known as the Cancer Cluster. The main part of the cluster is well out of my field of view to the west-southwest. Quite a few galaxies across my image have a similar distance so are likely members of the cluster as well.

IC 2339 is classed as an SB(s)c pec galaxy while IC 2338 is SAB(s)cd pec. I've not mentioned much about classification so let me go into more detail here. SB(s)c can be broken down to SB indicating a barred spiral, one whose bar is straight, if it curved some it would be SAB. The (s) means the arms that come off the bar go only one way, If they had gone both left and right from the bar then it would be (r) for ring even if that ring was far from complete. The c indicates how loosely or tightly wound the arms are. Tightly wound gets an "a" very loose gets a "d". Pec, of course, means peculiar so it sort of fits the previous classification or is thought it did before something happened to it like running by this other galaxy. IC 2338's classification as SAB means the bar is somewhat curved, not straight in that the spiral part that comes off the arms in a gradual transition rather than a sharp one as in SB class. (s) has been covered and the cd means it is looser than a c class but not as loose as a d class. And of course, it is peculiar due to its run in with IC 2339. This is a somewhat oversimplification of the de Vaucouleurs classification. Hubble's class would be simply SBc and SBcd. It has fewer divisions. Just is it spiral or elliptical or a spindle. If spiral does it have a bar and then how loosely the arms are wound. Elliptical galaxies are given a number, 1-5 depending on how elliptical they are 1 being a sphere. Spindles are just S0 in Hubble's system. Those that don't fit any of this are called irregular. De Vaucouleurs adds a class Sm which could be called a messed up spiral. Too messed up for the normal spiral classes but still recognizable enough not to be an irregular. The Magellanic Clouds would be such an example and is the reason for them to denote this class. For a good link on all of this and a lot more (big Powerpoint file) see: http://www.astro.ufl.edu/~vicki/galaxies/Lecture2.ppt There was a much better PDF version but it seems to have vanished to be replaced with the ppt file of the same URL except for the ppt extension.

The large galaxy above Arp 247 is IC 2341, an S0 galaxy also about a quarter billion light years away so a member of the Cancer Cluster. The Sc spiral down and left of IC 2341 is LEDA 142820, a 16th magnitude spiral in the Cancer Cluster.

There are 10 asteroids in the image. See the annotated image for details. IC 2338, 2339 and 2341 were all discovered by Stephane Javelle on March 2, 1896. All the action is happening in Cancer a couple degrees NW of M44.

The Sloan image can be found at:
http://astronomerica.awardspace.com/SDSS-5/IC2338.php

Arp's image:
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp247.jpeg

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

Related Designations for ARP247

ARP248

Arp 248 or Wild's Triplet, named for the British born Australian astronomer (John) Paul Wild, is a triplet of interacting galaxies whose redshift puts them about 250 million light-years from us and is in western Virgo. Most sources say they are connected by bridges of stars. I'm not quite sure I agree. I really see little hint of a bridge between the left two Yes, there is a hint of a vertical bar of debris but it seems to just over-run the tidal arm of the northern galaxy without actually merging with it. The obvious tidal streamer from the middle one to the western one seems to overrun the western galaxy rather than connect to it. The tidal arm of the eastern galaxy seems to ignore its presence indicating none of its stars are involved. The streamers could lie in front of or behind the companions.

The main galaxy in the middle is MCG -01-30-033, it is also in the 2MASS IR source catalog indicating massive star formation is going on that is heating dust to create all this IR radiation. It is classed as SB(s)b: pec with HII regions. The western galaxy is MCG -01-30-032. It is classed SAB(rs)b? pec. and is also a 2MASS object and thus a strong IR emitting galaxy. Between these two and below the main tidal streamer is the near edge on spiral 2MASX J11463870-0351363. It too is a strong IR emitting galaxy. Is it involved? The one paper I found that mentions it says it is likely a distant galaxy. But gives no reason for thinking this. Though it does appear to be possibly a large galaxy which would require it to be more distant. Still, I've seen cases where this logic leads to very wrong results. So I'll just say I don't know.

The northern member of the triplet is MCG -01-30-034, Yep, it too made the 2MASS catalog. It is classed as SB(s)c pec. It's redshift, if an accurate distance indicator, puts it about 10 million light-years more distant. More likely this is just a difference in their orbital motion from the near collision and their mutual gravity and not necessarily a true distance difference.

Arp put this in his Galaxies (not classifiable as S or E): Appearance of Fission category. Again I don't see what he sees as the "appearance of fission". Only thing I can see is that it may look like the center galaxy is pulling away from the western one stretching its arm in the process. He left no comment on this one.

The triplet gets its name from (John) Paul Wild, a British born, Australian astronomer who studied this group when at Cal Tech in 1953. I can't find if he used the 200" scope but that would seem likely. Arp often drew upon recommendations from other astronomers (much like Messier) for additions to his catalog. He likely was well acquainted with Wild's work on this group.

Going north and a tad west from the western galaxy you come to a red star with a round galaxy right beside it making it look like a double star but the western one is fuzzy. This is MAPS-NGP O_614_1267245. I can't find anything useful on it. Continue north to a similar fuzzy star but without a real star beside it. This is 2dFGRS N174Z156 which is 1.2 billion light-years distant. Since this field is not part of the SDSS I'm having to go to some rather obscure catalogs to find anything on many of the galaxies.

The bright star at the top of the image is SAO 138399 a 7.57 magnitude F2 star that gave me fits when processing the image. West of it are two rather bright red galaxies. The first is 2MASX J11462460-0345433 at about 675 million light-years. The round one is 2MASX J11461879-0345353 at about 660 million light-years.

The northern part of my image is in the SDSS but it doesn't go far enough south to pick up Arp 248 so I have no SDSS image but I did turn up one taken at the University of Arizona's Mt. Lemon SkyCenter atop Mt. Lemon which has excellent seeing I lack here.
http://www.caelumobservatory.com/gallery/wilds.shtml

Arp's image is at:
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp248.jpeg

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

Related Designations for ARP248

ARP249

ARP 249 is a pair or trio of interacting galaxies known as UGC 12891. Arp put them under his Appearance of Fission category. I've never figured out if he really thought they were splitting or just gave that appearance. He later decided quasars were ejected from galaxies but was more mainstream at the time he put the atlas together. His comment indicates he sees three galaxies here while some catalogs only see two and a plume or jet depending on who you read. It does have three listings in the PGC catalog 25, 200388 and the plume or galaxy being 1679585. Arp says: "Straight connection from faint material on east to middle galaxy." Which he sees as the appearance of fission I don't know. One note at NED refers to this eastern plume as "arrow-like projection." So what is the condensation in the plume? None of the catalogs at NED list it but I can see why Arp considered it a third galaxy. The Sloan survey, nor any other general survey covers this part of the sky so information is hard to find. NED lists the distance to the two main condensations as 511 and 512 million light years. While the pair appear to be elliptical galaxies NED doesn't even try to classify them.

Besides a dearth of information on Arp 249 that also applies to most of the field. Only one other galaxy in the image has any redshift data with the vast majority of the galaxies not even listed at NED. In fact, one of the few carries the note that it really is only a field star! The edge on spiral without much of a dust lane northwest of Arp 249 that's above a rather bright blue star is PGC 00004. Since that catalog starts at 0 hours right ascension this galaxy almost marks that point being only 3" of time east of that line. NED classes it simply as Spiral (written out not S as you'd expect. The red-shift puts it at 188 million light years.

A dozen or so other galaxies in the field are in the 2MASX catalog of IR galaxies but without even so much as a magnitude estimate. Apparently, no one looks very hard at this part of the sky.

Arp's image:
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp249.jpeg

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

Related Designations for ARP249