Harold Corwin

IC 4318 has two bright knots more or less in the middle of the object with spiral arms apparently emerging from both. It looks to me like a) a superposed interacting pair of galaxies; or b) a galaxy with two nuclei; or c) a galaxy with a bright knot approximately 7 arcseconds southwest of the nucleus.

Unfortunately, there are not yet (as of August 2015) any detailed studies of this galaxy cited in NED. Thus, the choice of interpretation of the images is pretty much based on the experience of the observer. I'm in favor the last of the options I listed in the previous paragraph, based on the appearance of the galaxy in the three DSS2 images: this looks to me like a high-surface- brightness SA:(s)c pec I-II spiral with a bright knot southwest of the nucleus.

― IC Notes by Harold Corwin

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