| Description | Arp classifies this as having "small high surface brightness companions on arms.". He notes, "Appearance of wake from stellar object in E arm." and the wake is pretty evident in the image extending towards the upper left corner (Note, east on Arp's images is counter-clockwise from north, and we can see from the comparison image that the white divot is right). Both considerations suggest the companion is the bright dot on the end of the arm that extends upwards in the image. That said, I don't feel this is the most compelling "high surface brightness companion" I've seen. This was the first observation during a brief, clear window on a mostly cloudy evening during a new moon. Significantly, I was able to complete this observation at 10:22 PM on an evening when Astronomical Dusk didn't hit until 10:43. Fortunately its location in Bootes to the SSW was sufficiently far from the residual sky-glow in the NW. |
