IC 1481 | |
---|---|
Observation data (J2000 epoch) | |
Constellation | Pisces |
Right ascension | 23h 19m 25.12s |
Declination | +05° 54′ 22.24″ |
Redshift | 0.020331 |
Heliocentric radial velocity | 6,095 km/s |
Distance | 289 Mly (88.60 Mpc) |
Apparent magnitude (V) | 0.25 |
Apparent magnitude (B) | 0.33 |
Characteristics | |
Type | Sb, LINER |
Size | 65,000 ly |
Apparent size (V) | 0.8' x 0.7' |
Other designations | |
UGC 12505, PGC 71070, IRAS 23168+0537 |
IC 1481 is a spiral galaxy located in the Pisces constellation. It is located 289 million light years from Earth[1] and was discovered by Austrian astronomer, Rudolf Spitaler on October 6, 1891.[2] The galaxy has an approximate diameter of 65,000 light years with a surface brightness of 12.8 square arcmin.[3]
According to an optical image, IC 1481 has an Sb morphological classification.[4] The galaxy also contains an active galactic nucleus (AGN). It is classified as a LINER galaxy.[5][6] showing an extensive narrow-line region. The region of IC 1481 has bright portions forming in a figure eight pattern and extends at Position Angle (PA) = 50° by ~ 13 arcseconds on both sides of its nucleus. It also show emission knots towards the field edges.[7] The stellar population of IC 1481 shows a post-starburst signature, which the Balmer lines contain strong absorption.[8]
A luminous H2O maser emission is found towards IC 1481. The spectrum of the maser has a narrow and strong feature of 0.15 Jy and FWHM = 2 km s−1. It is also weak and broad. With an isotropic luminosity of L = 320 LΘ, this suggests a megamaser.[4]
The maser features are found distributed, which they contain a velocity gradient. This suggests the AGN of IC 1481 has an unstable molecular gas disk with a mass of (4.3 ± 0.3) x 107 MΘ. The disk is seen edge-on. It has a thickness of 2H = 1.5-4.2 pc and a radius of r = 2.8-14.0 pc making the largest amongst other maser disks observed in other AGNs. Not to mention, the disk has a rotation of Vrot = 124–168 km s−1 and a velocity dispersion measured by △V ≈ 31 km s−1. Further observations found the disk of IC 1481 is huge indicated by its rotation curve being a sub-Keplerian.[4] When compared to the galaxy's black hole mass of <107 MΘ, its mass is higher.[4][9]
One supernova has been observed in IC 1481: SN 2000ey (type Ia, mag. 16.2).[10][11]