UGC 1281

UGC 1281 is a slightly warped edge on dwarf galaxy located 18 million light years from Earth in the constellation of Triangulum.^[2] It has a low surface brightness.^[3] The first known reference to this galaxy comes from Part 2 of the Morphological Catalogue of Galaxies, published in 1964, where it is listed as MCG +05-05-014.

UGC 1281
UGC 1281 imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. The bright patch to the lower left is companion galaxy PGC 6700.
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
Constellation	Triangulum
Right ascension	01h 49m 31.6135s[1]
Declination	+32° 35′ 19.525″[1]
Redshift	0.000520[1]
Heliocentric radial velocity	156 ± 1 km/s[1]
Distance	17.86 ± 0.73 Mly (5.476 ± 0.225 Mpc)[1]
Characteristics
Type	Sdm[1]
Size	~24,400 ly (7.49 kpc) (estimated)[1]
Other designations
MCG +05-05-014, PGC 6699, CGCG 503-026

There have been claims that UGC 1281 has a red stellar thick disk. However this claim is at odds with the low surface brightness of the galaxy.^[4]

Star formation

The current star formation rate of the UGC 1281 galaxy is 0.006 solar masses per year, for comparison, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) has a star formation rate of 0.046 solar masses per year. Because UGC 1281 has such a low rate of star formation, it is surprising that the galaxy is able to form bright diffuse ionized structures.

The galaxy had a period of enhanced star formation within the last 60 million years forming many blue supergiant stars.^[4]