Braun and Burton contacted Walterbos and Charles Hoopes, a doctoral student in astronomy at NMSU, who used the 3.5-meter optical telescope at Apache Point Observatory to verify that the hydrogen gas signature corresponded to a new galaxy. Apache Point, high in the Sacramento Mountains on one of the best observing sites in North America, is operated by NMSU for the Astrophysical Research Consortium, a group of seven universities and research institutions. It required a rapid response and it involved three different observational techniques. Further radio observations from the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory in British Columbia revealed that the weak optical signal was embedded in a much larger and rapidly rotating disk of hydrogen gas, characteristic of a robust spiral galaxy. LSB galaxies can be massive, with copious amounts of gas within them, but the gas is evolving to form stars very slowly compared with other galaxies, the astronomers said.
Most galaxies occur in large clusters or groups and interact with each other gravitationally.
The largest galaxies are believed to evolve by cannibalizing smaller ones. The Milky Way and its nearest large neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy, are on a collision course and probably will merge dramatically in a few billion years. LSB galaxies, on the other hand, are commonly found in quite empty regions of space. With little external influence on their internal circumstances, the process of star formation is not triggered efficiently, leaving vast reservoirs of gas but only a few young, bright stars. Discovery of Cepheus 1 gives astronomers a nearby example of LSB galaxies to study in detail.