IC 3481 is the first of three in a linear trio (Arp 175 = Zwicky's Triplet) with IC 3481A 1.4' SE and IC 3483 5.5' SE. IC 3481A appeared faint, small, round, 12" diameter, low surface brightness. On deep images, IC 3481 and 3481A are connected by a tidal plume and a huge arcing tail from IC 3481A reaches about 2/3 of the way to IC 3483. But IC 3483 has a very low recessional velocity, so a true connection of all three galaxies is very unlikely.

Royal Frost discovered IC 3481 = F. 953 on a plate taken 10 May 1904 at Harvard's Arequipa Observatory in Peru. He noted, "bM, magn 13."

Fritz Zwicky first discussed the interaction between IC 3481, 3481A and 3483, in his 1952 paper "Luminous Intergalactic Matter". It was also discussed in his 1956 paper "Multiple Galaxies" (1956ErNW...29..344Z). The trio is identified as "Zwicky's Triplet" in the RC2, although Arp 103 = CGCG 252-003, called "Zwicky's Connected System", is generally given this nickname.

600/800mm - 24" (6/4/16): fairly faint to moderately bright, small, round, fairly high surface brightness, 20" diameter, fairly bright stellar nucleus. Based on my size estimate, I only noticed the bright core region.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb