Ring? Ringarcs? Artifacts?
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by
Abe_Hoekstra
It looks like there is a partial ring encircling the entire galaxy. Arcs at 11, 1 and 5 o'clock. Or are these photographic artifacts?
Or are these astronomical features and my mind is connecting them into a circle?Posted
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Those are all actually the spiral arms of this galaxy! there appear to be two in total with a fairly diffuse disk that might make it appear as if they're arcs. Happy hunting!
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to note - true gravitational lens arcs almost always appear around yellow ellipticals, and are almost always a different color than the main body lensing the object. Ring structures, similar to Hoags object or other pseudo-ring galaxies will be very distinct in their structure. This galaxy is almost a perfect round disc in this image, which makes it appear as if it's a ring, but the arms and diffuse disk imply it's just a simple two-arm face on spiral.
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by
Abe_Hoekstra
I know what a lens looks like PrinceofEuropa 😃. I didn't mean to imply these were gravitational lenses 😉.
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by
Abe_Hoekstra
BTW I meant these faint features
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by
Abe_Hoekstra
The feature top left is even longer than I first saw.
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!!! I'm so sorry about that haha. Tbh that's a pretty good question, i'm not sure what those might be. My guess is artifact but it's possible it could be extremely faint extensions of that spiral's disc.
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Well spotted for such extremely faint features.
The top left one seems to be present in both GAMA KIDS g and r band so could very well be real. Faint tidal debris / extended spiral arm? Seems a bit too large and arc-shaped for a faint background galaxy to me.
GAMA KIDS g and r band greyscale cutouts, I hope they're permanently hosted:
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by
Abe_Hoekstra
Here is another galaxy with similar features: AGZ000el7f
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