A catalogue of dwarf galaxy candidates around interacting galaxies^*

¹ Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, E-38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain e-mail: hdeeg@iac.es
² Institute of Astronomy, Madingley Road, Cambridge, UK
³ Royal Greenwich Observatory, Madingley Road, Cambridge, UK
⁴ Observatorio Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
⁵ European Southern Observatory, Garching, Germany
⁶ Service d'Astrophysique, Centre d'Études de Saclay, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France

Send offprint request to: C. Muñoz-Tuñón

Received: 30 May 1997
Accepted: 7 October 1997

Abstract

We present results from the imaging of a sample of 12 interacting galaxies for which we have cataloged all potential dwarf systems in the vicinity of these strongly interacting galaxies. After careful cleaning of the images and applying a restrictive S/N criterion we have identified, measured and cataloged all possible extended objects in each field. On the frames, covering 11.4 × 10.5 arcmins, typically 100-200 non-stellar faint, extended objects were found. The vast majority of these objects had not been previously identified. The number of expected objects in the magnitude range exceeds the expected count of background galaxies. This supports the possibility that a density enhancement of extended objects around some interacting galaxies results from the addition of a locally formed dwarf galaxy population.