HI AND OPTICAL OBSERVATIONS OF THE NGC-428 FIELD

The H I and optical properties of the NGC 428 galaxy field are present ed, Three galaxies in this system are found to contain H I, The larges t of these is NGC 428 which has undergone strong recent star formation in its spiral arms where the H I surface density exceeds approximate to 8x10(20) cm(-2). TO the north of NGC 428 there is a low surface bri ghtness galaxy (0110+008) with mu(0)(B)=25.0 mag arcsec(-2) and with a peak HI column density of similar to 2x10(20) cm(-2), Additionally th ere is an H I tail lying to the south of NGC 428 with a peak H I colum n density of similar to 1x10(20) cm(-2) which is connected to NGC 428 and extends to similar to 2.5 Holmberg radii, This tail has no associa ted optical emission to similar to 27 mu(B) mag arcsec(-2), It is post ulated that the low H I surface density of the tail has inhibited star formation. Possible formation scenarios for the H I tail and low surf ace brightness galaxy 0110+008 are discussed.