Object of the Week Feb 26, 2012 - ARP 283

ARP 283 = NGC 2798 & NGC 2799

LYNX

J2000
RA
09 17 22.9
DEC
+41 59 59

MAG V 13.0 (N 2798)

GALAXIES, TYPES SBa (NGC 2798) & SBd (NGC 2799)

Arp 283 consists of 2 interacting spiral galaxies. I revisited these guys on Friday night, 2/24/12 from my usual site in the Anza-Borrego desert in eastern San Diego County. Both seeing and transparency were above average for this location, it was a very nice night, especially before midnight.

I first took a peek at low power, using my 24mm TAL UWA in Debbie's 20" F5 Obsession, and was struck by the beauty of these 13th & 14th mag galaxies, having a couple of brighter stars in the field forming a long parallelogram with the galaxies, and the galaxies themselves joined about 6 arc sec south by UGC 4904, a mag 15 spiral galaxy, and taken together looking for all the world like a miniature "Leo Trio".

All 3 galaxies have about the same redshift, so they are probably all part of the same group, lying about 90 or so million LY's away.

Cranking up the power starts to reveal some evidence of interaction between the 2 galaxies. The smaller edge-on NGC 2799 seems to be ever so slightly convex towards the larger NGC 2798, which itself shows large tidal plumes in photos which were not apparent to me on this particular night. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

Overall, I spent about 15 minutes at the eyepiece, using various powers, and enjoyed them all.
Attachment 106


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GOOD LUCK AND GREAT VIEWING!!