the same system to be a single object (their object 3), and therefore report a combined magnitude. With optical photometry, [@Meiring2011] resolved the object into two extended objects (their objects 6 and 7) consistent with the redshift of the sub-DLA, likely forming an interacting pair of galaxies [@Meiring2011; @Straka2016].

The slit in our FORS2 observations of Q1436-0051 is aligned to cover this galaxy configuration. To solve for the stellar mass of each component (see Section \[sec:SED\]), we acquired the calibrated $J$, $H$, and $K$ band images used in [@Rao2011] from private communication with Sandhya M. Rao, and perform aperture photometry with `SExtractor` [@Bertin1996] version 2.19.5. We obtain isophotal flux measurements for which we require a $2\sigma$ detection threshold above the RMS noise level in the image and that a source encompasses a minimum of five pixels in the detection isophote. With these criteria in place, we resolve the two objects in the $K$-band image and ensure that we measure a representative flux-ratio of the interacting galaxies by accounting for flux in the extended wings of the flux profiles. We construct a $K$-band catalogue for object identification, and use it to extract the flux for each of the two galaxies in 