New Low Surface Brightness Dwarf Galaxies Detected Around Nearby Spirals

TL;DR

This study uses amateur telescopes to discover 27 low surface brightness dwarf galaxy candidates around nearby spirals within 10 Mpc, confirming some as true satellites through spectroscopy.

Contribution

It presents a new survey method for detecting faint dwarf galaxies around spirals using small telescopes, expanding the known population of LSB satellites.

Findings

Identified 27 LSB dwarf candidates around nearby spirals.

Confirmed physical association of two dwarfs with their host galaxies.

Measured properties of the dwarf candidates, including magnitudes and sizes.

Abstract

We conduct a survey of low surface brightness (LSB) satellite galaxies around the Local Volume massive spirals using long exposures with small amateur telescopes. We identified 27 low and very low surface brightness objects around the galaxies NGC,672, 891, 1156, 2683, 3344, 4258, 4618, 4631, and 5457 situated within 10 Mpc from us, and found nothing new around NGC,2903, 3239, 4214, and 5585. Assuming that the dwarf candidates are the satellites of the neighboring luminous galaxies, their absolute magnitudes are in the range of -8.6 > M_B > -13.3, their effective diameters are 0.4-4.7 kpc, and the average surface brightness is 26.1 mag/sq arcsec. The mean linear projected separation of the satellite candidates from the host galaxies is 73 kpc. Our spectroscopic observations of two LSB dwarfs with the Russian 6-meter telescope confirm their physical connection to the host galaxies NGC,891 and NGC,2683.