Apparent Associations Between Bright Galaxies and Quasi-Stellar Objects

A comparison of the spatial distribution of the 47 identified QSOs in the 3C and 3CR catalogs with the small-red shift galaxies contained in the Refrrence Catalog of Bright Galaxies shows that four QSOs with redshifts in the range 0.5-1 4 are much closer to bright galaxies than would be expected if the 47 QSOs were distributed randomly. An extensive analysis of the distributions shows that the probability that this is a chance occurrence is less than 5 X 10-2. It is also shown that the radio-quiet QSO PHL 1226 with a redshift of 0.4 lies very close to the comparatively nearby galaxy IC 1746 to which it appears to have a physical connection.