NGC 253 - dw2 anyone?

[wvreeven]

Looks like there is another, brighter, "companion" on the same side of NGC 253 but slightly further away. It is in the upper left in this APOD

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap091121.html

and the dwarf galaxy mentioned by Paul is also visible to the right of the lower bright star.

[Steve Gottlieb]

The brighter companion that Wouter mentioned is PGC 198196 = 2MASX J00472894-2526263 = MAC 0047-2526 at 00h 47m 29.0s -25° 26' 26" (J2000). It's included in NED as well as LEDA, which lists a B magnitude of 16.03 +/- 0.47.

Using Vizier, the fainter and closer companion mentioned by Paul, is 2MASX J00472496-2521253. It's not included, though, in either the NED or LEDA databases.

[Robin]

Wow, that's really interesting stuff. I just looked it up in Cartes du Ciel. The radial velocity of PGC 198196 is listed as 20883 km/s, while NGC 253's is 251 km/s. I can imagine looking at this through a telescope, with some foreground stars, this is quite some depth of field! :-)

Clear skies,

Robin