How Peculiar Are They?

By Aaron B. Clevenson, ALCor

“Our sun is one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of billions of galaxies populating the universe.”
- Wernher von Braun, 1960

This month we pause to look at the high tech observing club, the ARP Peculiar Galazy club. This is a club for all those aspiring to use their CCD cameras to take pictures of some of the most remote objects; galaxies. Specifically, this club looks for the peculiar ones, those that don’t fit the normal image of a nice well-behaved galaxy. This is the 15th article in this series.

The objective is to observe 100 of the 338 ARP Peculiar Galaxies. Although this program is designed for CCD imaging, it can also be done visually and using astrophotography. They recommend that you want to have at least 12.5 inches of aperture. That’s it. Good luck!

Halton C. Arp compiled a list of peculiar galaxies. He was doing this as part of his research into galaxy formation. He did his work in the 1960’s using astrophotography, but of course he had use of the 200-inch aperture telescope at Mount Palomar.

To use Arp’s own words:
"The peculiarities of the galaxies pictured in this Atlas represent perturbations, deformations, and interactions which should enable us to analyze the nature of real galaxies we observe and which are too remote to experiment on directly. In general, the more conspicuous the peculiarity, the more illustrative it is of special events and reactions that occur in galaxies. From this range of experiments which nature furnishes us, then, it is our task to select and study which give the most insight into the composition and structure and the forces which govern a galaxy.”
Next month we come back a little closer to home with a program designed for those less experienced that the ARP observers. Join us for a look at the Sky Puppies Club. If you are under 11, then this is the club for you. Be sure to tune in!