Star Bursts in the UV Bright Interacting Galaxies NGC 3395 & 3396

We have obtained ultraviolet and visible wavelength images for the interacting galaxies, NGC 3395 and 3396, using the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on Hubble Space Telescope. IUE observations (Kinney et al. 1993) indicate that both of these galaxies have strong UV emission. Ground based spectra display evidence of extensive star formation. The visible images were obtained using the CCD detector and filter F28X50LP (central wavelength ~ 7230 Angstroms , FWHM ~ 1998 Angstroms). The ultraviolet images were obtained using the F25QTZ filter with the far-UV MAMA detector (central wavelength ~ 1595 Angstroms , FWHM ~ 206 Angstroms), and the F25CN182 filter with the near-UV MAMA detector (central wavelength ~ 2010 Angstroms, FWHM ~ 681 Angstroms). The data were reduced and analyzed using standard IRAF and STSDAS packages and customized software routines. This work has been supported in part by NASA, under contract NAS5-31231. We will present luminosities, luminosity functions, sizes and colors for the UV bright star forming regions. Stellar populations and ages of these knots will be constrained by comparison with star burst models (Leitherer et al. 1999). We will discuss the dependence of the characteristics of the knots on position in the galaxies and the possible relationship to the tidal interaction.