2013A&A...559A...8F

We report detailed morphological and kinematical insights into the disturbed galaxy FM287-14, which is reported in the literature as a member of strongly interacting galaxies with a clear case of mergers. The main purpose of this paper is to provide a first observational study of this double-nuclei object based on photometry and spectroscopy. The study is based on BVR photometry with the 1.6-m telescope at OPD, and long-slit spectroscopy with Gemini South's GMOS spectrograph, with two-gratings centered at 5011Å and 6765Å. Image enhancement techniques were applied to the direct images, and the main lines in the spectra were used to determine the radial velocity. Line ratios and color-color diagnostic diagrams helped determine the nature of this object. The external NE section is populated with well-defined HII regions and is bluer than the SW region with less evidence of HII regions. A double nucleus has been identified. The (B-R)x(B-V) diagram shows that the main nucleus is redder than the second one; the internal ``ring-like'' structure is redder than the external one. The main object redshift is z=0.0311, corresponding to a line-of-sight velocity of 9334km/s (a distance of 133.3Mpc), and the second nucleus has a redshift of z=0.0310, corresponding to a line-of-sight velocity of 9300km/s (a distance of 132.9Mpc). Both nuclei show characteristics of early-type galaxies, but the main one also shows modest emission evidence of the [NII]λ6583 line. The peculiarities of FM 287-14 can be adequately interpreted as an ongoing merging-stage of interaction of the main object with a companion galaxy.