ASTRO: Arp 222

Arp 222 is NGC 7727, a very disturbed spiral classed as SAB(s)a pec by
NED, S(B)a pec by the NGC project and a mess by me. Arp included it
under galaxies with amorphous spiral arms. It is very similar to Arp
223 as well as near it in western Aquarius. But is only about half as
far away at 70 light years. Like Arp 223 it has a nearby companion at
about the same distance, NGC 7724 to its west. It is classed as
(R')SB(r)b pec? by NED and Sb by the NGC project. The arms do make a
near ring but no where as nice as that of Arp 223's companion. I'm
stumped as to why NED considers it possible peculiar other than the near
ring like arm structure. Since that is fairly common I don't see that
as peculiar. NED shows it to be 73 light years distant but that's well
within the error bar of red shift distance measurement so which is
really closer to us is pretty much a coin toss.

Notes at NED indicate it is likely the result of a merger as two nuclei
are seen. Looking at my image at 3x I see a red object due east of the
main core and a white object to the north northwest. The later may be a
star as it appears a bit sharper. One note says it is 3" from the main
one but doesn't give a direction. That would be the north northeast
object. The note says it could be just a star as their resolution of
0.7" (better than mine at 1") wasn't sufficient to tell. If they can't
I certainly can't. Still it does have the appearance of a merger so
I'll go with that for now. The galaxy seems to have a near vertical
axis and a near horizontal one. That and its style of distortion
matches known mergers such as Arp 192 leads me to this conclusion. Arp
is of no help having made no comment on either 222 or 223.

Since this area is so little studied I never thought to check out Hubble
until I was just about to post this. When I did I found a image of the
core that clearly shows this is a merger in progress and that northern
object is the second core, a much smaller one than the main one, likely
because it has been stripped of most of its stars by the merger. So the
merger idea appears correct. I've included this Hubble image. It also
shows my red patch is just a loop of stars torn out by the merger process.

While NGC 7724 is nearby it shows no distortion so I doubt it is
interacting with Arp 222. This is also the conclusion of the NGC
project and several notes at NED. Still it is an interesting galaxy in
an otherwise rather drab image. The colors of both are rather weak with
both being rather white in color, not a lot of star formation going on
in either it would seem.

There's little information on what few galaxies there are in the image.
The only other galaxy of note is the small two armed (very faint arms)
barred spiral in the lower left corner, 2MASX J23405811-1223374 at about
900 million light years.

There are two asteroids in the image. The one at the top directly above
Arp 222 is (152825) 1999 UE49 at magnitude 19.1. It is moving virtually
directly west. In the lower part of the image well east (left) of
center is (106135) 2000 TE42 at magnitude 18.7. It is moving at a
steeply inclined angle to the southwest.

Arp's image:
http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level...ig_arp222.jpeg

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

Rick
I'll be speaking at the Midstates Region Astronomical League convention
the first weekend in June along with Dr. Pete Shultz who designed the
Deep Impact impacter and Larry Stepp who headed the optics team that
designed the 2 Gemini scopes and NASA's Rob Landis among others. Pete
and I helped form the club hosting the convention back in 1961.
http://www.msral2010.info/

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

that's a very nice image Rick

The pair look great

I am especially interested in the core merger.

Congrats in advance on your speaking engagement. I wish I could attend, hear
the talk and meet you




"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
. com...
Arp 222 is NGC 7727, a very disturbed spiral classed as SAB(s)a pec by
NED, S(B)a pec by the NGC project and a mess by me. Arp included it
under galaxies with amorphous spiral arms. It is very similar to Arp
223 as well as near it in western Aquarius. But is only about half as
far away at 70 light years. Like Arp 223 it has a nearby companion at
about the same distance, NGC 7724 to its west. It is classed as
(R')SB(r)b pec? by NED and Sb by the NGC project. The arms do make a
near ring but no where as nice as that of Arp 223's companion. I'm
stumped as to why NED considers it possible peculiar other than the near
ring like arm structure. Since that is fairly common I don't see that
as peculiar. NED shows it to be 73 light years distant but that's well
within the error bar of red shift distance measurement so which is
really closer to us is pretty much a coin toss.

Notes at NED indicate it is likely the result of a merger as two nuclei
are seen. Looking at my image at 3x I see a red object due east of the
main core and a white object to the north northwest. The later may be a
star as it appears a bit sharper. One note says it is 3" from the main
one but doesn't give a direction. That would be the north northeast
object. The note says it could be just a star as their resolution of
0.7" (better than mine at 1") wasn't sufficient to tell. If they can't
I certainly can't. Still it does have the appearance of a merger so
I'll go with that for now. The galaxy seems to have a near vertical
axis and a near horizontal one. That and its style of distortion
matches known mergers such as Arp 192 leads me to this conclusion. Arp
is of no help having made no comment on either 222 or 223.

Since this area is so little studied I never thought to check out Hubble
until I was just about to post this. When I did I found a image of the
core that clearly shows this is a merger in progress and that northern
object is the second core, a much smaller one than the main one, likely
because it has been stripped of most of its stars by the merger. So the
merger idea appears correct. I've included this Hubble image. It also
shows my red patch is just a loop of stars torn out by the merger process.

While NGC 7724 is nearby it shows no distortion so I doubt it is
interacting with Arp 222. This is also the conclusion of the NGC
project and several notes at NED. Still it is an interesting galaxy in
an otherwise rather drab image. The colors of both are rather weak with
both being rather white in color, not a lot of star formation going on
in either it would seem.

There's little information on what few galaxies there are in the image.
The only other galaxy of note is the small two armed (very faint arms)
barred spiral in the lower left corner, 2MASX J23405811-1223374 at about
900 million light years.

There are two asteroids in the image. The one at the top directly above
Arp 222 is (152825) 1999 UE49 at magnitude 19.1. It is moving virtually
directly west. In the lower part of the image well east (left) of
center is (106135) 2000 TE42 at magnitude 18.7. It is moving at a
steeply inclined angle to the southwest.

Arp's image:
http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level...ig_arp222.jpeg

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

Rick
I'll be speaking at the Midstates Region Astronomical League convention
the first weekend in June along with Dr. Pete Shultz who designed the
Deep Impact impacter and Larry Stepp who headed the optics team that
designed the 2 Gemini scopes and NASA's Rob Landis among others. Pete
and I helped form the club hosting the convention back in 1961.
http://www.msral2010.info/

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

Excellant image - I've added it to the target list.

On Sun, 16 May 2010 17:45:23 -0500, Rick Johnson
wrote:

Arp 222 is NGC 7727, a very disturbed spiral classed as SAB(s)a pec by
NED, S(B)a pec by the NGC project and a mess by me. Arp included it
under galaxies with amorphous spiral arms. It is very similar to Arp
223 as well as near it in western Aquarius. But is only about half as
far away at 70 light years. Like Arp 223 it has a nearby companion at
about the same distance, NGC 7724 to its west. It is classed as
(R')SB(r)b pec? by NED and Sb by the NGC project. The arms do make a
near ring but no where as nice as that of Arp 223's companion. I'm
stumped as to why NED considers it possible peculiar other than the near
ring like arm structure. Since that is fairly common I don't see that
as peculiar. NED shows it to be 73 light years distant but that's well
within the error bar of red shift distance measurement so which is
really closer to us is pretty much a coin toss.

Notes at NED indicate it is likely the result of a merger as two nuclei
are seen. Looking at my image at 3x I see a red object due east of the
main core and a white object to the north northwest. The later may be a
star as it appears a bit sharper. One note says it is 3" from the main
one but doesn't give a direction. That would be the north northeast
object. The note says it could be just a star as their resolution of
0.7" (better than mine at 1") wasn't sufficient to tell. If they can't
I certainly can't. Still it does have the appearance of a merger so
I'll go with that for now. The galaxy seems to have a near vertical
axis and a near horizontal one. That and its style of distortion
matches known mergers such as Arp 192 leads me to this conclusion. Arp
is of no help having made no comment on either 222 or 223.

Since this area is so little studied I never thought to check out Hubble
until I was just about to post this. When I did I found a image of the
core that clearly shows this is a merger in progress and that northern
object is the second core, a much smaller one than the main one, likely
because it has been stripped of most of its stars by the merger. So the
merger idea appears correct. I've included this Hubble image. It also
shows my red patch is just a loop of stars torn out by the merger process.

While NGC 7724 is nearby it shows no distortion so I doubt it is
interacting with Arp 222. This is also the conclusion of the NGC
project and several notes at NED. Still it is an interesting galaxy in
an otherwise rather drab image. The colors of both are rather weak with
both being rather white in color, not a lot of star formation going on
in either it would seem.

There's little information on what few galaxies there are in the image.
The only other galaxy of note is the small two armed (very faint arms)
barred spiral in the lower left corner, 2MASX J23405811-1223374 at about
900 million light years.

There are two asteroids in the image. The one at the top directly above
Arp 222 is (152825) 1999 UE49 at magnitude 19.1. It is moving virtually
directly west. In the lower part of the image well east (left) of
center is (106135) 2000 TE42 at magnitude 18.7. It is moving at a
steeply inclined angle to the southwest.

Arp's image:
http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level...ig_arp222.jpeg

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

Rick
I'll be speaking at the Midstates Region Astronomical League convention
the first weekend in June along with Dr. Pete Shultz who designed the
Deep Impact impacter and Larry Stepp who headed the optics team that
designed the 2 Gemini scopes and NASA's Rob Landis among others. Pete
and I helped form the club hosting the convention back in 1961.
http://www.msral2010.info/

Rick,

this galaxy is larger than one would expect from such an unknown object, at
least if one is able to go as deep as you did.

Stefan

"Rick Johnson" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
. com...
Arp 222 is NGC 7727, a very disturbed spiral classed as SAB(s)a pec by
NED, S(B)a pec by the NGC project and a mess by me. Arp included it
under galaxies with amorphous spiral arms. It is very similar to Arp
223 as well as near it in western Aquarius. But is only about half as
far away at 70 light years. Like Arp 223 it has a nearby companion at
about the same distance, NGC 7724 to its west. It is classed as
(R')SB(r)b pec? by NED and Sb by the NGC project. The arms do make a
near ring but no where as nice as that of Arp 223's companion. I'm
stumped as to why NED considers it possible peculiar other than the near
ring like arm structure. Since that is fairly common I don't see that
as peculiar. NED shows it to be 73 light years distant but that's well
within the error bar of red shift distance measurement so which is
really closer to us is pretty much a coin toss.

Notes at NED indicate it is likely the result of a merger as two nuclei
are seen. Looking at my image at 3x I see a red object due east of the
main core and a white object to the north northwest. The later may be a
star as it appears a bit sharper. One note says it is 3" from the main
one but doesn't give a direction. That would be the north northeast
object. The note says it could be just a star as their resolution of
0.7" (better than mine at 1") wasn't sufficient to tell. If they can't
I certainly can't. Still it does have the appearance of a merger so
I'll go with that for now. The galaxy seems to have a near vertical
axis and a near horizontal one. That and its style of distortion
matches known mergers such as Arp 192 leads me to this conclusion. Arp
is of no help having made no comment on either 222 or 223.

Since this area is so little studied I never thought to check out Hubble
until I was just about to post this. When I did I found a image of the
core that clearly shows this is a merger in progress and that northern
object is the second core, a much smaller one than the main one, likely
because it has been stripped of most of its stars by the merger. So the
merger idea appears correct. I've included this Hubble image. It also
shows my red patch is just a loop of stars torn out by the merger process.

While NGC 7724 is nearby it shows no distortion so I doubt it is
interacting with Arp 222. This is also the conclusion of the NGC
project and several notes at NED. Still it is an interesting galaxy in
an otherwise rather drab image. The colors of both are rather weak with
both being rather white in color, not a lot of star formation going on
in either it would seem.

There's little information on what few galaxies there are in the image.
The only other galaxy of note is the small two armed (very faint arms)
barred spiral in the lower left corner, 2MASX J23405811-1223374 at about
900 million light years.

There are two asteroids in the image. The one at the top directly above
Arp 222 is (152825) 1999 UE49 at magnitude 19.1. It is moving virtually
directly west. In the lower part of the image well east (left) of
center is (106135) 2000 TE42 at magnitude 18.7. It is moving at a
steeply inclined angle to the southwest.

Arp's image:
http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level...ig_arp222.jpeg

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

Rick
I'll be speaking at the Midstates Region Astronomical League convention
the first weekend in June along with Dr. Pete Shultz who designed the
Deep Impact impacter and Larry Stepp who headed the optics team that
designed the 2 Gemini scopes and NASA's Rob Landis among others. Pete
and I helped form the club hosting the convention back in 1961.
http://www.msral2010.info/

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