The Possible Polar Ring Thread

[Megalodon99]

Did I just find a tilted ring on this one, or is my imagination running away with me?  Note:This is also in the ring thread (by me). Are tilted rings rare/wierd/important?
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[Alice]

My fault for putting it in there rather than asking you if you'd like it put in here. 

I did that because I thought it just seemed an ordinary ring to me - after all, change our position and any could appear tilted. But it's nice to make sure.

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Update: In fact, this turned out to be an extremely interesting object, and more polar rings seem to be being found. Post 'em here! 

[Megalodon99]

... I'm an idiot, I should have realized it was just a position thing. I don't mind the moving, that was my mistake, not yours. Delete this if you want

[Alice]

I don't think you're an idiot at all. 

Let's see if people think this is interesting. If not, I'll delete it as you suggest. If people come up with lots of info about this galaxy, I won't.

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Update: They certainly did and deletion is out of the question!

[IAMoraes]

Let's see if people think this is interesting. If not, I'll delete it as you suggest. If people come up with lots of info about this galaxy, I won't.

Don't know about lots of information, but besides the ring Megalodon spotted, there is a distortion from 8:30 to 2:30 that could indicate that the galaxy changed orientation.  This nucleus has two distinct colors, the dust lane covers the northern part, but the lower part is clearly clockwise, the bright spot is off-center in relation to the orange spot, whose placement has nothing to do with the placement of the dust lane!  That would only happen in case of merger recoil.  So I assume that the merger occurred a few rotations ago.

Check out the higher zooms:
http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/chart/chart.asp?ra=157.09756188&dec=39.94851022

[Megalodon99]

Maybe that's why I was seeing a tilt. interesting... Any other opinions?

[dlocksmith]

I dont see a ring at all.
If anything I see a C/W spiral.
I dont see any signs of merger past or present either.

Perhaps if I had looked over the weekend I would have seen more 

[IAMoraes]

I dont see a ring at all.

The first one is easy to see.  The second one I didn't mean a "ring" proper but a ring-like thingie (one day I will learn the vocabulary).  I am basing that assertion on brightness levels, of course, and assume that this "ring-like" is where the center lanes of the spiral shift up sideways.

[gz]

I think the classification you're looking for is "polar ring" galaxy: a disc galaxy with a ring that is not in the same plane as the main disc.

I can't tell if yours is a distorted polar ring, or simply a ring-looking merger remnant. Interesting, no matter what.

[gz]

Famous example:

[draguimov]

Don't see a ring, probably due to a bad resolution, but it looks too spread to me, so it is possibly a spiral that is trying to look like regular elliptical...

[IAMoraes]

Famous example:

Right on!  That was the one I had in mind but I didn't know what it is called!

[Megalodon99]

That is a beautiful picture, thank you. Any other opinions? Should I bring this to a Zookeepers attention? Are they rare? ...??

[fluffyporcupine]

yes polar rings are quite rare, althought they will see it in the ring thread, it may be worth an email/pm

[j_doe]

What I see, with my old eyes, is a possible mid merger of two
spiral galaxies.    My guess is the following:

The denser galaxy appears to be coming in at about 60 degrees
to the plane of the other.  The center of the denser galaxy has not
yet reached the plane of the other galaxy (or maybe it is already passed
through it).  All that I see of the weaker galaxy is the outer edge.

Here is an illustration.