Spectral galaxy pairs from SDSS DR9

These spectra are useful for studying the dust properties of the foreground galaxies. In this article, a total of 165 spectra of SGPs are mined from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 9 (DR9) using the concept of 'membership degree' from fuzzy set theory, especially defined to be suitable for fuzzy identification of emission lines.

The spectra and images of this sample are classified according to their membership degree and image features, respectively. Many of the second redshift systems are too small or too dim to select from SDSS images alone, making the sample a potentially unique source of information on dust effects in low-luminosity or low surface brightness galaxies, which are underrepresented in morphological pair samples. The dust extinction of those objects with high membership degree is also estimated by Balmer decrement.