Antlia Dwarf

RA:

10 : 04.1

Dec:

-27 : 20

Type:

dE3

RV:

Distance:

4600 kly

Apparent Dimension:

2.0 x 1.5 arc min

Diameter:

5.5 kly

Brightness:

14.8 m_vis

Abs. Mag:

Mass:

Antlia dwarf has been discovered by research students Alan Whiting and George Hau of Cambridge University (England) when visually inspecting UK Schmidt Telescope photographic survey plates; the discovery was announced on April 10, 1997 (see Whiting et.al. 1997). Within this work they also found the nearby probable non-member Argo Dwarf galaxy.

While it was the Cambridge team who identified this galaxy as a Local Group member candidate, it had been discovered previously by Corwin et.al. (1985). Also, it had been previously cataloged by Feitzinger and Galinski (1985) where it is No. 256, and by Fouque et. al. (1990) as PGC 29194. None of these references, however, led to its identification as a potential Local Group member.

The membership of this galaxy in the Local Group is still subject to current research and discussion. The Antlia dwarf is a member of a small group of galaxies around NGC 3109, which also contains the dwarf galaxies Sextans A and Sextans B. The group of Mike Irwin in Cambridge have it as a Local Group member, and Mateo (1998) counts it to the NGC 3109 subgroup of our small cluster of galaxies. On the other hand, van den Bergh (1999) takes this for a small but independent nearby group of galaxies, the nearest neighbor to our Local Group.

• Antlia Dwarf page within the MAA Constellations & Stars pages
• Antlia Dwarf Galaxy by FORS1 on VLT UT1, ESO Press Photos 10a-d/99 (slide)

• H.G. Corwin, A. de Vaucouleurs, and G. de Vaucouleurs, 1985. Southern galaxy catalogue. A catalogue of 5481 galaxies south of declination -17 grad. found on 1.2m UK Schmidt IIIa J plates. University of Texas Monographs in Astronomy, Austin [ADS: 1985sgcc.book.....C]
• 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]
• P. Fouque, N. Durand, L. Bottinelli, L. Gouguenheim, and G. Paturel, 1990. An HI survey of late-type galaxies in the Southern Hemisphere. I - The SGC sample. Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series, vol. 86, no. 3, Dec. 1990, p. 473-502 [ADS: 1990A&AS...86..473F]
• Mario Mateo, 1998. Dwarf Galaxies of the Local Group. Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 36, 1998, p. 435-506 [ADS: 1998ARA&A..36..435M]. Available online [framed version] - table of Local Group galaxies (NED Level 5)
• Sidney van den Bergh, 1999. The nearest group of Galaxies. Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 517, pp. L97-L99 (June 1, 1999) [ADS: 1999ApJ...517L..97V]
• A.B. Whiting, M.J. Irwin and G.K.T. Hau, 1997. A new galaxy in the Local Group: The Antlia Dwarf galaxy. Astronomical Journal v.114, pp. 996-1001 (September 1997) [ADS: 1997AJ....114..996W]

Last Modification: June 26, 2003