Argo Dwarf Galaxy

RA:

07 : 05.3

Dec:

-58 : 31

Type:

Irr/SB(s)m

RV:

554 km/s (helioc.)

Distance:

12000 kly

Apparent Dimension:

3.5 x 1.7 arc min

Diameter:

12.2 kly

Brightness:

14.2 mag (vis)

Abs. Mag:

Mass:

The Argo Dwarf galaxy, or Carina II Dwarf Galaxy, was found, together with the Antlia Dwarf, in April 1997, by the group of Mike Irwin in Cambridge, England, on UK Schmidt Telescope plates. However, in difference to Antlia, this galaxy is probably located beyond the borders of the Local Group, and also not gravitationally bound, thus a nearby non-member galaxy.

Our image was published by Mike Irwin's group.

While the Cambridge group have been the first to deeper study this dwarf galaxy, the object had been discovered previously on UK Schmidt plates by Harold Corwin, A. de Vaucouleurs and G. de Vaucouleurs (1980), and cataloged on various occasions, e.g. as Feitzinger-Galinski 202 (Feitzinger and Galinski 1985), AM 0704-582 (Arp and Madore, 1987), PGC 20125 (Paturel et.al., 1989) and LEDA 20125 (Lyon-Meudon Extragalactic Database).

Mike Irwin have observed both hot blue star forming regions in addition to evolved red supergiants in the Argo Dwarf galaxy. Also, Argo has also been detected in neutral hydrogen light, and as such appears to be a typical dwarf irregular galaxy located just beyond the Local Group. Irwin's group estimated the distance of this dwarf galaxy at 4 Mpc, or about 12 million light-years.

References

• Halton C. Arp and Barry F. Madore, 1987. A catalogue of southern peculiar galaxies and associations. Cambridge University Press [ADS: 1987AM....C......0A]
• Harold Corwin, A. de Vaucouleurs and G. de Vaucouleurs, 1980. Survey of late-type and irregular southern galaxies on plates taken with the UK 1.2-M Schmidt telescope. III. Astronomical Journal, vol. 85, pp. 1027-1045 (Aug. 1980) [ADS: 1980AJ.....85.1027C]
• J.V. Feitzinger and Th. Galinski, 1985. A catalogue of dwarf galaxies south of delta = -17.5 deg. Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series, vol. 61, Sept. 1985, pp. 503-515 [ADS: 1985A&AS...61..503F]
• G. Paturel, P. Fouque, L. Botinelli and L. Gougenheim, 1989 and 1995. An extragalactic database. I - The Catalogue of Principal Galaxies. Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series, vol. 80, no. 3, pp. 299-315 (Nov 1989) [ADS: 1989A&80..299P]. Also: Catalogue of Principal Galaxies (PGC). VizieR On-line Data Catalog, VII/119 [ADS: 1995yCat.7119....0P] - online data.

Last Modification: March 14, 1998