ASTRO: Arp 131

Arp 131 belongs in Arp's category for elliptical and elliptical like
galaxies close to and perturbing spirals. It is located on the western
border of Eridanus. Arp made no comment about this galaxy pair. The
southern "elliptical like" galaxy is MCG -03-08-025. NED classes it as
an Sa spiral seen nearly edge on. If so it seems to lack a dust lane.
Redshift data puts it at about 356 million light-years from us. Well
Arp did say "elliptical like". The companion is MCG -03-08-026. It is
an obvious spiral though NED doesn't attempt to classify it. Nor does
it have a red shift value for it. The one note at NED says the two are
interacting. It appears that MCG -03-08-026 may have interacted with
something. But MCG -03-08-025 shows no sign of distortion so are they
really interacting? I'd like a red shift measurement before trying to
answer that question. For now I'll say I'm not convinced they are a
true interacting pair.

There's a pair of possibly interacting galaxies east and a bit north of
Arp 131. It seems to show more evidence of interaction than Arp 131.
I've included this pair as an inset with the enlarged cropped version of
Arp 131. Like Arp 131 there's no redshift data on the possible
companion. Not only that, the galaxy isn't even listed at NED so earned
a question mark on the annotated image.

The field is rather sparse. The annotated image shows lists all
galaxies with redshift data at NED. I also identified them plus a few
others without distance data. Not all listed at NED are identified in
the annotated image but most of the larger ones are. But their entries
only denote their RA and Dec values so I only listed a few of them.

Arp's image
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/A...ig_arp131.jpeg

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

Rick
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Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".