Discovery of an extremely low luminosity Seyfert 1 nucleus in the dwarf galaxy NGC 4395

A Seyfert 1 nucleus was discovered in the center of the late-type dwarf galaxy NGC 4395. The optical specturm shows strong, narrow emission lines covering a wide range of ionization from forbidden O I to forbidden Fe X. Weak wings are visible in the permitted-line profiles and the luminosity of the broad H-alpha emission is found to be 1.2 X 10 to the 38th erg/s, making this the least luminous known Seyfert 1 nucleus. Possible explanations for the nuclear properties of NGC 4395 are considered. 20 refs.