Mr Renormalised, you are probably right......
NGC 1385 may be as "normal" as the LMC.
Mind you, this definition of normality includes an interaction with a lower mass companion!
The asymmetry of NGC 1385 is not nearly so pronounced when it is seen in the near-infrared (which, I hasten to add, for the benefit of the "lesser brethren", usually traces the older stellar population that dominates the
mass of a galaxy)
Here is an H-band image (1.6 microns)(near-infrared) of
NGC 1385, which I have displayed at a linear scale. This is taken from the OSUBSGS (survey).
As can be plainly seen here, the older stellar population of NGC 1385 is much more regularly arrayed than the very young stellar population traced by the blue channel in the GALEX ultraviolet image of this galaxy.
This, the asymmetry of this very young population may be a recent phenomenon, while the underlying mass of this galaxy may not be very perturbed.
[[ I note here, for those of you less accustomed to analyzing galaxy images, that just because the Hot & Young & Very Luminous stars within a galaxy are very chaotic or asymmetric in their distribution, it does not mean that the galaxy itself is actually perturbed. Young stars are only a small fraction of the total
mass of a galaxy.
A good example of this is NGC 2903, which looks very messy at visual wavelengths, due to an overlay of dense gas clouds and very luminous stars.....but the mass of this galaxy is probably mildly perturbed (at most). ]]
Cheers,
madbadgalaxyman
One more important point is that NGC 1385 is not actually a low luminosity spiral galaxy like the LMC, if the redshift of N1385 is taken as a rough indicator of its distance.
This could mean either:
(1) This is an LMC-like galaxy that is experiencing a global starburst that is greatly increasing its luminosity
or
(2) This is a giant (non-dwarf) galaxy comparable to the Milky Way.
Possibility number 1 looks more likely to me at the moment, but I need to have a closer look at this issue before I can decide for sure.
NGC 1385, If I remember correctly, is probably a member of the "Eridanus Cloud" on the Fornax-Eridanus border; a vastly distended cloud of galaxies which resembles a vastly extended version of a galaxy cluster.......and this positioning would tend to support the idea that this is a galaxy of relatively high luminosity.
(there is incipient galaxy clustering in this area; very interesting, but here I digress!!)
P.S.
Another similar system, NGC 4027, albeit of even more asymmetric morphology, was once compared by Professor Kenneth C. Freeman (of ANU) to the LMC.