A&A Supplement series, Vol. 129, May I 1998, 455-462
Received May 30; accepted October 7, 1997
H.J. Deeg
, C. Muñoz-Tuñón, G.
Tenorio-Tagle
, E. Telles
, J.M. Vilchez, J.M.
Rodriguez-Espinosa, P.A. Duc
, and I.F. Mirabel
Send offprint request: C. Muñoz-Tuñón
Instituto de Astrofısica de Canarias, E-38200 La Laguna,
Tenerife, Spain
e-mail: hdeeg@iac.es
Institute of Astronomy, Madingley Road, Cambridge, UK
Royal Greenwich Observatory, Madingley Road, Cambridge, UK
Observatorio Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
European Southern Observatory, Garching, Germany
Service d'Astrophysique, Centre d'Études de Saclay, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
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
R= 18 - 19.5 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.
keywords: galaxies: interactions -- galaxies: statistics -- galaxies: formation