Radio Galaxy Zoo Talk

ARG00027j1 - interacting/merging pair of spirals?

  • JeanTate by JeanTate

    Here's the SDSS image, zoomed in:

    enter image description here

    There are two nuclei - the yellow-orange small circular blobs; both have spectra. The top one (SDSS J161708.94+222628.0) has a (spectroscopic) redshift of 0.066, and is classed - by the spectroscopic pipeline (automatically!) - as 'QSO AGN BROADLINE' (somewhat redundant, it seems to me). The bottom one (SDSS J161708.88+222623.9): z_sp = 0.065, 'GALAXY STARBURST'. The two are 0.070' apart, which is only 4.2", well within both the FIRST and WISE PSF, so it would be very difficult to say - with confidence - which of the nuclei is the source; in fact, neither IR nor radio source seems like a PSF (they're not circular), so it's possible both galaxies contribute (for sure, in the IR image; maybe not for the radio).

    Posted