A Catalogue of M51 type Galaxy Associations
Ari Jokimaki, Harley "Skip" Orr, David G. Russell

TL;DR
This paper presents a catalog of 232 M51-type galaxy pairs identified through visual inspection, highlighting their morphological features, classification challenges, and the need for spectroscopic follow-up to enhance understanding of galaxy interactions.
Contribution
The study provides a new, visually-compiled catalog of M51 galaxy pairs with detailed classifications and discusses the limitations and future spectroscopic needs for better analysis.
Findings
Most M51 systems have late-type, two-armed spiral galaxies.
Many previously classified M51 systems are misclassified or contain foreground objects.
Only 18% of companions have redshift data, indicating a need for spectroscopic follow-up.
Abstract
A catalog of 232 apparently interacting galaxy pairs of the M51 class is presented. Catalog members were identified from visual inspection of mult-band images in the IRSA archive. The major findings in the compilation of this catalog are (1) A surprisingly low number of the main galaxies in M51 systems are early type spirals and barred spirals. (2) Over 70% of the main galaxies in M51 systems are 2-armed spirals. (3) Some systems that were classified as M51 types in previous studies are not M51 types as defined in this catalog. There were a number of systems previously classified as M51 systems for which the companion is identified as an HII region within the main galaxy or a foreground star within the Milky Way. (4) It was found that only 18% of the M51 type companions have redshift measurements in the literature. There is a significant need for spectroscopic study of the companions in…
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