2 00 2 Spiral Structure and Galaxy Environment

Received ; accepted – 2 – ABSTRACT Among 330 normal spirals of types Sa-Sc the fraction of objects exhibiting " ring " , " intermediate " and " spiral " arm varieties does not correlated with environment. A similar conclusion appears to apply to the arm varieties of 123 barred spirals of types SBa-SBc. It is concluded that, among the northern Shapley-Ames galaxies, the distinction between the spiral and ring varieties of spiral arms is, within the accuracy of presently available data, independent of galaxy environment. This result suggests that the detailed morphology of spiral arms depends primarily on parent galaxy characteristics, rather than on the galactic environment .