De Vaucouleurs Atlas Type: (R^')SB(r)ab pec

Filter: B

Telescope: LCO 2.5-m
North up , East left
Field Dimensions: 6.1 x 4.6 arcminutes

RC3 Type: SB(r)a
RSA Type: SBb(rs)I pec
Surface Brightness Range Displayed: 18.0-26.0 mag per square arcsec
Absolute Blue Magnitude: -18.9

De Vaucouleurs Atlas Description:

This early-type barred spiral has a well-defined bar and two bright rings: an inner ring made of tightly-wrapped spiral structure, and a bright nuclear ring similarly made. Both rings are zones of active star formation in the color index map, which also reveals nearly straight leading bar dust lanes. Outside the inner region, two faint spiral arcs are seen. In this region also, a faint disk is present. The wide field image shows the distortions of outer structure caused by the interaction with NGC 1512 's close companion, NGC 1510 , which is to the southwest.

The kinematics of NGC 1512 's two rings were studied by Buta (1988), who showed that simple orbit models could represent the velocity fields. The star formation in the nuclear ring has recently been studied at high resolution by Maoz et al. (2001).