[madbadgalaxyman (Robert)]

15.5 magn. with an 8 inch!!! I have never got anywhere near this with this aperture. Perhaps it is a combination of your superb skies and the legendary Dana "CCD retinas"?

Thank you, Dana, for your description of the WLM system. As usual, it is well researched and well written.(and entertaining).

As you said, WLM is very isolated indeed. It Must be lonely out there!

According to the morphology-density relationship originally posited by Alan Dressler, and later found to apply in every environment where it has been tested, dwarf irregular galaxies should preferentially be found on the fringes of Galaxy Groups . There was recently an entire symposium devoted to this relationship, which I am going to read "any time, real soon now".

Q. How does the morphology of the "quiet little" WLM system stack up against that of the very-likely-to-be-perturbed LMC? What is the origin and evolution of a high mass Magellanic Irregular like LMC compared to that of the WLM?

Given that the LMC is of similar total luminosity to M33, and it is of a galaxy luminosity where moderately regular spiral structure is often found in other galaxies, one wonders if the irregular morph. of the LMC is due to its current encounter with the Milky Way. I believe that its orbit is fairly well constrained, now that its proper motion has been measured.

Therefore I posit the following "astro-provocation":
Did the LMC come from the fringes of the Local Group?!?

Actually....... LMC is a barred Type Sm galaxy, which implies that there is some symmetry and also perhaps some trace of a spiral arm .
There are some spiral arms seen in the gas distribution of the LMC. Furthermore, despite its odd appearance, the LMC is a regularly-rotating disk structure.

Arguably, the evident optical-regime morphology of the LMC could be that of a one-armed disk galaxy , which is a typical state for a lot of disk galaxies that have undergone interactions. (Maybe it is just a former spiral galaxy that was modified by gravitational interactions with the MW)

(((
"Magellanic Spirals".....normally of Hubble Type SBm......
Gerard de Vaucouleurs and Kenneth C. Freeman in 1972 characterized them as having:
- a dominant large Bar Structure (but no bulge structure, whatsoever)
- a bar that is often offset from the optical or kinematic centre of its galaxy
- a single main spiral arm, or asymmetric spiral structure
- usually, a large star forming complex situated near one end of the bar
- a higher mass than the typical true Irregular galaxy.

In other words, the barred Magellanic systems are often connected with some type of gravitational perturbation from outside, and they are very different from the true irregular galaxies.
)))