At last night's SLAS meeting we watched an animation of two galaxies colliding, resulting in a "tadpole" asterism. It looked like the animation was of Caldwell 60 and 61 (Arp 244) - Arp244 NGC 4038-4039 C60-61 J120152.48-185202.9 mag 10.3-10.5 Unfortunately C60-61 is between Corvus and Carter and is below the horizon. Checking Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies - << http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/frames.html
for similar galaxies that are currently visible, Arp's numbers 233-256 concerns galaxies with the appearance of fission. For you light-bucket faint-fuzzy searchers, a few Arp galaxies that are above the horizon (albeit off-zenith in the west) and that are similar to the animation we viewed are: Arp240 NGC5257 http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp240.gif J133952.94+005024.4 mag V12.9 dia. 1.8' Arp238 UGC8335 http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp238.gif J131500.00+620600.0 mag 15 dia. 0.85' Arp241 UGC9425 http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp241.gif J143751.13+302847.0 mag B15 dia. 0.85' Arp242 NGC 4676 (The Mice Galaxies) http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/Figures/big_arp242.gif J124610.18+30 43 53.7 mag B14.1 dia. 1.37' I haven't personally observed these, so I can't express an opinion on the practicality of seeing them under current conditions. - Enjoy Canopus56(Kurt) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com