NGC 4650A - PRG

NGC 4650A

De Vaucouleurs Atlas Type: PRG

Filter: B

Telescope: HST 2.4-m
North left , East down
Field Dimensions: 4.1 x 3.0 arcminutes

RC3 Type: S0/a: pec
RSA Type: -----
Surface Brightness Range Displayed: 18.0-26.0 mag per square arcsec
Absolute Blue Magnitude: -20.4

De Vaucouleurs Atlas Description:

This peculiar system is a prototype polar ring galaxy (book section 2.17.5), where a gas-rich companion galaxy has likely been disrupted into a polar orbit around a gas-poor S0 galaxy (Iodice et al. 2002). Both components are well shown in this HST image. NGC 4650 A has been used to explore the shape of a dark matter halo (e.g., Whitmore et al. 1987; Sackett et al. 1994; Combes and Arnaboldi 1996), because of the presence of gas at large distances out of the plane of the S0. Owing to the difficulties of studying two such dissimilar systems, conflicting results have been obtained.