Mrk 1040 and its companion LEDA 212995.

The Sy 1 galaxy Mrk 1040 and its close companion LEDA 212995 have been observed in several narrow spectral bands, as well as in the U and I bands, in order to look for possible interaction between them. The analysis of the observations shows a very strong point-like innermost center of Mrk 1040 that is from AGN, an irregular structure of the companion expected in the case of a starforming region, and different star-forming regions in the stellar disk of Mrk 1040. No tidal tail of young stars between Mrk 1040 and LEDA 212995 has been identified. 1. Motivation The influence of interactions on the fueling of the nuclei of AGNs, as well as of HII galaxies, has been the topic of several studies (see [1] and references therein). There are two interesting questions: (1) the origin of the gas that fuels the nuclear black hole, and (2) the mechanisms responsible for making the gas lose angular momentum and move from galactic scales down to the innermost central region of the AGN. Several mechanisms have been suggested to explain how it is possible to transport gas from the disk of a spiral galaxy to its nucleus. One of them is interaction between two galaxies. One of visually galaxy pairs is Mrk 1040 and LEDA 212995. The companion LEDA 212995 is a small galaxy with emission lines indicating a star-forming region (HII lines, see [2]). Its dimensions are 0.20' x 0.10' and its magnitude is >19. The galaxy is visually located near the Sy 1 galaxy Mrk 1040 (z = 0.01665, [3]).