The analysis of the barred galaxy NGC 6701

We present broad band and Her photometry as well as long slit spectroscopy at four different position angles for the barred Sa galaxy NGC 6701. The images show a very prominent diamond-shaped bar lying almost along the disc minor axis. The bar is especially bright along the most external regions of its major axis. The signature of star forming processes can be seen in those regions by their bluer colors and also from the Ha: image. Two distinct dust lanes trace the inner sides of these bright features. The spectroscopic results point to the presence of shocks along the dust lanes, in agreement with some numerical simulations of barred galaxies. In fact, the properties of NGC 6701 resemble those found in simulations quite well. The kinematical analysis of NGC 6701 shows a perturbed rotation curve. This galaxy shows many of the signs supposed to be consequences of interaction. We report the redshift of a nearby, small galaxy, which turns out to be a physical companion to NGC 6701. The redshift difference is only 145 km s(-1) and the projected distance is 73 kpc (with Ho = 75 km s(-1)Mpc(-1)). The peculiarities in NGC 6701 could thus be produced by the interaction with this small companion.