Deep Optical Imaging of a Compact Group of Galaxies: Seyfert's Sextet

Shingo Nishiura, Takashi Murayama, Masashi Shimada, Yasunori Sato, Tohru Nagao, Kohji Molikawa, Yoshiaki Taniguchi, D. B. Sanders
2000 Astronomical Journal  
In order to investigate the dynamical status of Seyfert's Sextet (SS), we have obtained a deep optical (VR+I) image of this group. Our image shows that a faint envelope, down to a surface brightness μ_ optical(AB) ≃ 27 mag arcsec^-2, surrounds the member galaxies. This envelope is irregular in shape. It is likely that this shape is attributed either to recent-past or to on-going galaxy interactions in SS. If the member galaxies have experienced a number of mutual interactions over a long
more » ... le, the shape of the envelope should be rounder. Therefore, the irregular-shaped morphology suggests that SS is in an early phase of dynamical interaction among the member galaxies. It is interesting to note that the soft X-ray image obtained with ROSAT (Pildis et al. 1995) is significantly similar in morphology. We discuss the possible future evolution of SS briefly.
doi:10.1086/316799 fatcat:dc3f3kg4wrcrboebvewcyuaqcm