Surface photometry of binary galaxies. I. A multicolour study of morphologies due to the interaction ^*

¹ Istituto di Fisica Applicata, Università di Milano, Via Brera 28, I-20121 Milano, Italy
² Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Via Brera 28, I-20121, Milano, Italy

Send offprint request to: L. Reduzzi

Received: 22 June 1995
Accepted: 2 October 1995

Abstract

We present the multicolour (B, V, R) surface photometry of 53 double galaxies. All the pairs belong to the catalogue of Reduzzi & Rampazzo (1995) containing objects selected according to the Karachentsev (1972) criteria. We comment on the morphological, structural and photometric characteristics of pairs and their members. Different classes of interaction induced phenomena, both among early and late-type galaxies, are considered. We found that few early-type galaxies show fine structures. Grand design structure is more frequently detected in binary than in field spirals both for barred and non barred, confirming Elmegreen & Elmegreen's (1982) study. The colour of the tails is consistent with the stripping hypothesis since it is similar to the progenitor galaxy outskirts. Among our objects we have no evident sign of induced star formation in tails. Rings appear on average bluer than the disc as a whole.