BVRI-H alpha surface photometry of peculiar ring galaxies - I. HRG 2302

Detailed BVRI-H alpha photometry has been obtained for the ring galaxy HRG 2302. This is probably a still interacting system which shows two principal components: the target, which is a knotted ringed-disk, and the intruder, an elongated galaxy with two substructures probably caused by the interacti on. The existence of H II emission regions is suggested by H alpha images a nd medium dispersion spectra of the three brightest parts of this system. A nalysis of a color-color diagram suggests recent star formation, in agreeme nt with the behavior of interacting galaxies with nuclear emission. HRG 330 2 has been previously classified as a Polar Ring galaxy (Faundez-Abans & de Oliveira-Abans 1998a), but we have reclassified it as Elliptical-Knotted, based on the morphological substructures found. This work reveals, for the first time, the existence of at least 15 fainter galaxies in the field with in similar to 4' around HRG 2302, giving positions and integrated standard magnitudes for all of them.