ASTRO: Arp 287

Arp 287 is a pair of interacting galaxies, also known as NGC 2735 and
NGC 2735A, located in northern Cancer. Arp put these in his category:
Double galaxies, Wind effects. In fact it is the very first entry in
this category. Arp said of the pair: "Slanted parallel streamers off
each edge of main galaxy." That certainly is the case. They certainly
are strange compared to the standard plumes seen in interacting
galaxies. Many years ago I spent many days playing with software to
model interacting galaxies. I found it easy to make all varieties of
"normal plumes" seen in his catalog but I never could make the "wind
effect" type no matter what I did. Such software was primitive (as was
the computer) compared to today's, still I've not seen a simulation that
creates these types of plumes. If anyone has run across one please let
me know. Besides the streamers note that there is a dust lane between
them that extends completely across the main galaxy to the companion.
So are the streamers really coming from the companion as the dust lane
appears to be? Seems possible to me.

Red shift data at NED puts the main galaxy at about 125 million light
years and classes it as SAB(rs)b? pec. Many papers however class it as
a "Red SBa" spiral. The companion is a blue compact galaxy classed as
Im: pec and showing a red shift that puts it a bit further away at 130
million light years. This difference is easily within the normal range
of galaxies in groups. They are likely at virtually the same distance.
The thin sliver of a galaxy to their east (left) is also at the same
distance (SDSS J090253.00+255612.5). So this is more of a triple than a
double system. It just isn't interacting with the other two.

Arp later noted that quasars seemed to be found around his strangest
galaxies and thought that the low red shift ones were nearest the galaxy
and the largest red shifts belonged to the most distant. Most
astronomers considered this coincidence but it lead Arp the the belief
that some, if not all quasars were actually nearby objects ejected from
these strange galaxies. He even came up with what many would call
crackpot physics to support this idea. This and other factors led to
him being kicked off the 200" scope and sent packing for Europe where a
few still thought at least some parts of his ideas needed to be further
investigated. Few if any buy them today however. Geoffrey Burbidge who
died recently was one of the few that still held out hope for non
cosmological red shift but not using Arp's "warped" physics. `In the
case of Arp 287 there is a "nearby" quasar just north of the main galaxy
that is "only" 4.9 billion light years distant. See the annotated image
to find it. A bit further out along the same line is one 8.2 billion
light years out and following the line the other way even further is one
of 11.6 billion light years. But if you go further the idea breaks down
with a quasar to the northeast of the last one that is only 4.4 billion
light years away the lowest red shift of all. But if you want to save
the nutty idea then maybe these are something different. It was partly
due to Arp's ability to rationalize away exceptions that helped ruin his
reputation. All scientists constantly come up with wrong ideas. The
good ones know when to let go and move on. For some reason Arp found
this impossible as to his anomalous red shift idea.

The annotated image. as usual, shows the distances to galaxies and
quasars in billions of light years. The limiting magnitude of the image
appears to be about magnitude 23.5 for the processed image. The raw
luminosity images goes a bit deeper. I've labeled one such galaxy with
its green magnitude. It is one of dozens you will see if you enlarge
the lower southeast portion of the image. To me it appears there's a
galaxy cluster there but I found none listed at NED for this area.
Looking at the image though you will see the galaxies tend to fall in
groups. There's one at about 1.1 to 1.3 billion light years, another at
about 4.3 to 4.7 billion light years. If there's no red shift listed by
an object that means I didn't find one at NED. This includes some
rather "bright" galaxies.

The image contains 6 asteroids. Late evening images to those a few
hours after local midnight show those that are moving in retrograde
motion if near the meridian where I image. Thus they move "backwards"
from east to west as we pass them taking our shorter and faster inner
track around the sun. But this image was taken just before dawn and
caught them in their "normal" west to east motion. So they are moving
right to left. But the tracks are short indicating they soon will be
changing to retrograde motion. The short tracks make them harder to
pick out so I've labeled them in the notated image. 3 are magnitude
19.7. The obvious bright one above Arp 287 is magnitude 18.6. The
faintest at magnitude 20.1 is just above a "small" galaxy in the lower
right corner. The one right on the bottom edge near the right edge as
well is 19.9, I barely caught it. One of the 19.7 ones is named Desai.
Seems if you do well in the Intel (used to be Westinghouse) science
contest you get an asteroid named after you. This is the second I've
run across in my images. The naming citation reads: "K****ij A. Desai
(b. 1992) was awarded second place in the 2008 Intel International
Science and Engineering Fair for his medicine and health sciences
project. He attends the Michael E. DeBakey High School for Health
Professions, Houston, Texas, U.S.A." Do they have high schools for
astronomy professionals?

Besides the full, annotated, 1.5x enlarged cropped images I've also
included one by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Arp's image:
http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level...ig_arp287.jpeg

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME
--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

Good image.

You have me searching through my cd's, I'm sure I imaged this pair but
for sosme reason thery are on on my web site.

On Sat, 04 Sep 2010 00:56:44 -0500, Rick Johnson
wrote:

Arp 287 is a pair of interacting galaxies, also known as NGC 2735 and
NGC 2735A, located in northern Cancer. Arp put these in his category:
Double galaxies, Wind effects. In fact it is the very first entry in
this category. Arp said of the pair: "Slanted parallel streamers off
each edge of main galaxy." That certainly is the case. They certainly
are strange compared to the standard plumes seen in interacting
galaxies. Many years ago I spent many days playing with software to
model interacting galaxies. I found it easy to make all varieties of
"normal plumes" seen in his catalog but I never could make the "wind
effect" type no matter what I did. Such software was primitive (as was
the computer) compared to today's, still I've not seen a simulation that
creates these types of plumes. If anyone has run across one please let
me know. Besides the streamers note that there is a dust lane between
them that extends completely across the main galaxy to the companion.
So are the streamers really coming from the companion as the dust lane
appears to be? Seems possible to me.

Red shift data at NED puts the main galaxy at about 125 million light
years and classes it as SAB(rs)b? pec. Many papers however class it as
a "Red SBa" spiral. The companion is a blue compact galaxy classed as
Im: pec and showing a red shift that puts it a bit further away at 130
million light years. This difference is easily within the normal range
of galaxies in groups. They are likely at virtually the same distance.
The thin sliver of a galaxy to their east (left) is also at the same
distance (SDSS J090253.00+255612.5). So this is more of a triple than a
double system. It just isn't interacting with the other two.

Arp later noted that quasars seemed to be found around his strangest
galaxies and thought that the low red shift ones were nearest the galaxy
and the largest red shifts belonged to the most distant. Most
astronomers considered this coincidence but it lead Arp the the belief
that some, if not all quasars were actually nearby objects ejected from
these strange galaxies. He even came up with what many would call
crackpot physics to support this idea. This and other factors led to
him being kicked off the 200" scope and sent packing for Europe where a
few still thought at least some parts of his ideas needed to be further
investigated. Few if any buy them today however. Geoffrey Burbidge who
died recently was one of the few that still held out hope for non
cosmological red shift but not using Arp's "warped" physics. `In the
case of Arp 287 there is a "nearby" quasar just north of the main galaxy
that is "only" 4.9 billion light years distant. See the annotated image
to find it. A bit further out along the same line is one 8.2 billion
light years out and following the line the other way even further is one
of 11.6 billion light years. But if you go further the idea breaks down
with a quasar to the northeast of the last one that is only 4.4 billion
light years away the lowest red shift of all. But if you want to save
the nutty idea then maybe these are something different. It was partly
due to Arp's ability to rationalize away exceptions that helped ruin his
reputation. All scientists constantly come up with wrong ideas. The
good ones know when to let go and move on. For some reason Arp found
this impossible as to his anomalous red shift idea.

The annotated image. as usual, shows the distances to galaxies and
quasars in billions of light years. The limiting magnitude of the image
appears to be about magnitude 23.5 for the processed image. The raw
luminosity images goes a bit deeper. I've labeled one such galaxy with
its green magnitude. It is one of dozens you will see if you enlarge
the lower southeast portion of the image. To me it appears there's a
galaxy cluster there but I found none listed at NED for this area.
Looking at the image though you will see the galaxies tend to fall in
groups. There's one at about 1.1 to 1.3 billion light years, another at
about 4.3 to 4.7 billion light years. If there's no red shift listed by
an object that means I didn't find one at NED. This includes some
rather "bright" galaxies.

The image contains 6 asteroids. Late evening images to those a few
hours after local midnight show those that are moving in retrograde
motion if near the meridian where I image. Thus they move "backwards"
from east to west as we pass them taking our shorter and faster inner
track around the sun. But this image was taken just before dawn and
caught them in their "normal" west to east motion. So they are moving
right to left. But the tracks are short indicating they soon will be
changing to retrograde motion. The short tracks make them harder to
pick out so I've labeled them in the notated image. 3 are magnitude
19.7. The obvious bright one above Arp 287 is magnitude 18.6. The
faintest at magnitude 20.1 is just above a "small" galaxy in the lower
right corner. The one right on the bottom edge near the right edge as
well is 19.9, I barely caught it. One of the 19.7 ones is named Desai.
Seems if you do well in the Intel (used to be Westinghouse) science
contest you get an asteroid named after you. This is the second I've
run across in my images. The naming citation reads: "K****ij A. Desai
(b. 1992) was awarded second place in the 2008 Intel International
Science and Engineering Fair for his medicine and health sciences
project. He attends the Michael E. DeBakey High School for Health
Professions, Houston, Texas, U.S.A." Do they have high schools for
astronomy professionals?

Besides the full, annotated, 1.5x enlarged cropped images I've also
included one by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Arp's image:
http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level...ig_arp287.jpeg

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