GCN Circular 7186
Subject
NGC 2770B has the same redshift as NGC 2770
Date
2008-01-15T22:42:35Z (17 years ago)
From
Daniele Malesani at Niels Bohr Inst,Dark Cosmology Center <malesani@astro.ku.dk>
Johan P.U. Fynbo, Daniele Malesani (DARK), Thomas Augusteijn, and
Sami-Matias Niemi (NOT), report:
We acquired a spectrum of the galaxy (or galaxy pair) NGC 2770B, located
~3 arcmin West of NGC 2770, the host galaxy of XRF 080109 / SN 2008D
(Berger & Soderberg, ATel 1353; Deng & Zhu, GCN 7160). Observations were
carried out with the Nordic Optical Telescope, starting on 2007 Jan
15.213 UT, for a total exposure time of 10 min.
From the detection of prominent nebular lines, including Balmer
features, [OII], [OIII], [SII], [NII] and others, we determine the
redshift to be z = 0.0064 +- 0.0003. This is very similar to the
redshift of NGC 2770 (z=0.0065 according to NED). At the corresponding
distance (25.7 Mpc), the angular separation of ~3 arcmin corresponds to
only 22 kpc in projection.
Similarly to NGC 2770, NGC 2770B is undergoing intense star formation,
as implied by its blue colors and the large Halpha equivalent width.
Although there is not much evidence for morphological distorsions, a
past interaction might have triggered the strong starburst activity in
both objects.