AE Aurigae, 82 AGN (Active Galactic Nucleus), 116 Andromeda Galaxy
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Arxiv:1312.6769V2
Infall of nearby galaxies into the Virgo cluster as traced with HST1 Igor. D. Karachentsev Special Astrophysical Observatory RAS, Nizhnij Arkhyz, Karachai-Cherkessian Republic, Russia 369167 [email protected] R. Brent Tully Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA Po-Feng Wu Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA Edward J. Shaya Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA Andrew E. Dolphin Raytheon Company, 1151 East Hermans Road, Tucson, AZ 85756, USA Received ; accepted arXiv:1312.6769v2 [astro-ph.GA] 13 Jan 2014 –2– ABSTRACT We measured the Tip of the Red Giant Branch distances to nine galaxies in the direction to the Virgo cluster using the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope. These distances put seven galaxies: GR 34, UGC 7512, NGC 4517, IC 3583, NGC 4600, VCC 2037 and KDG 215 in front of the Virgo, and two galaxies: IC 3023, KDG 177 likely inside the cluster. Distances and radial velocities of the galaxies situated between us and the Virgo core clearly exhibit the infall phenomenon toward the cluster. In the case of spherically symmetric radial infall we estimate the radius of the “zero-velocity surface” to be (7.2±0.7) 14 Mpc that yields the total mass of the Virgo cluster to be (8.0 ± 2.3) × 10 M⊙ in good agreement with its virial mass estimates. We conclude that the Virgo outskirts does not contain significant amounts of dark matter beyond its virial radius. 1. Introduction In the standard ΛCDM cosmological model groups and clusters are built from the merging of already formed galaxies embedded in massive dark haloes (White & Rees, 1978). -
BRAS Newsletter August 2013
www.brastro.org August 2013 Next meeting Aug 12th 7:00PM at the HRPO Dark Site Observing Dates: Primary on Aug. 3rd, Secondary on Aug. 10th Photo credit: Saturn taken on 20” OGS + Orion Starshoot - Ben Toman 1 What's in this issue: PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE....................................................................................................................3 NOTES FROM THE VICE PRESIDENT ............................................................................................4 MESSAGE FROM THE HRPO …....................................................................................................5 MONTHLY OBSERVING NOTES ....................................................................................................6 OUTREACH CHAIRPERSON’S NOTES .........................................................................................13 MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION .......................................................................................................14 2 PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE Hi Everyone, I hope you’ve been having a great Summer so far and had luck beating the heat as much as possible. The weather sure hasn’t been cooperative for observing, though! First I have a pretty cool announcement. Thanks to the efforts of club member Walt Cooney, there are 5 newly named asteroids in the sky. (53256) Sinitiere - Named for former BRAS Treasurer Bob Sinitiere (74439) Brenden - Named for founding member Craig Brenden (85878) Guzik - Named for LSU professor T. Greg Guzik (101722) Pursell - Named for founding member Wally Pursell -
Unusual Orbits in the Andromeda Galaxy Post-16
Unusual orbits in the Andromeda galaxy Post-16 Topics covered: spectra, Doppler effect, Newton’s law of gravitation, galaxy rotation curves, arc lengths, cosmological units, dark matter Teacher’s Notes In this activity students will use real scientific data to plot the rotation curve of M31 (Andromeda), our neighbouring spiral galaxy. They will use Kepler’s third law to predict the motion of stars around the centre of M31. They will then measure the wavelengths of hydrogen emission spectra taken at a range of radii. The Doppler equation will be used to determine whether these spectra come from the approaching or receding limb of the galaxy and the velocity of rotation at that point. They will plot a velocity vs radius graph and compare it with their predicted result. A flat rotation curve indicates the presence of dark matter within Andromeda. Equipment: calculator, ruler, graph paper (if needed) Questions to ask the class before the activity: What is the Universe composed of? Answer: energy, luminous matter, dark matter, dark energy. What is a spectrum and how so we get spectral lines? Answer: a ‘fingerprint’ of an object made of light. The spectrum of visible light is composed of the colours of the rainbow. Absorption lines arise from electrons absorbing photons of light and jumping an energy level or levels; emission lines occur when electrons fall down to a lower energy level and emit a photon in the process. What can a spectrum tell us? Answer: the composition of an object such as a star, its temperature, its pressure, the abundance of elements in the star, its motion (velocity). -
Messier Objects
Messier Objects From the Stocker Astroscience Center at Florida International University Miami Florida The Messier Project Main contributors: • Daniel Puentes • Steven Revesz • Bobby Martinez Charles Messier • Gabriel Salazar • Riya Gandhi • Dr. James Webb – Director, Stocker Astroscience center • All images reduced and combined using MIRA image processing software. (Mirametrics) What are Messier Objects? • Messier objects are a list of astronomical sources compiled by Charles Messier, an 18th and early 19th century astronomer. He created a list of distracting objects to avoid while comet hunting. This list now contains over 110 objects, many of which are the most famous astronomical bodies known. The list contains planetary nebula, star clusters, and other galaxies. - Bobby Martinez The Telescope The telescope used to take these images is an Astronomical Consultants and Equipment (ACE) 24- inch (0.61-meter) Ritchey-Chretien reflecting telescope. It has a focal ratio of F6.2 and is supported on a structure independent of the building that houses it. It is equipped with a Finger Lakes 1kx1k CCD camera cooled to -30o C at the Cassegrain focus. It is equipped with dual filter wheels, the first containing UBVRI scientific filters and the second RGBL color filters. Messier 1 Found 6,500 light years away in the constellation of Taurus, the Crab Nebula (known as M1) is a supernova remnant. The original supernova that formed the crab nebula was observed by Chinese, Japanese and Arab astronomers in 1054 AD as an incredibly bright “Guest star” which was visible for over twenty-two months. The supernova that produced the Crab Nebula is thought to have been an evolved star roughly ten times more massive than the Sun. -
Observing List
day month year Epoch 2000 local clock time: 23.98 Observing List for 23 7 2019 RA DEC alt az Constellation object mag A mag B Separation description hr min deg min 20 50 Andromeda Gamma Andromedae (*266) 2.3 5.5 9.8 yellow & blue green double star 2 3.9 42 19 28 69 Andromeda Pi Andromedae 4.4 8.6 35.9 bright white & faint blue 0 36.9 33 43 30 55 Andromeda STF 79 (Struve) 6 7 7.8 bluish pair 1 0.1 44 42 16 52 Andromeda 59 Andromedae 6.5 7 16.6 neat pair, both greenish blue 2 10.9 39 2 45 67 Andromeda NGC 7662 (The Blue Snowball) planetary nebula, fairly bright & slightly elongated 23 25.9 42 32.1 31 60 Andromeda M31 (Andromeda Galaxy) large sprial arm galaxy like the Milky Way 0 42.7 41 16 31 61 Andromeda M32 satellite galaxy of Andromeda Galaxy 0 42.7 40 52 32 60 Andromeda M110 (NGC205) satellite galaxy of Andromeda Galaxy 0 40.4 41 41 17 55 Andromeda NGC752 large open cluster of 60 stars 1 57.8 37 41 17 48 Andromeda NGC891 edge on galaxy, needle-like in appearance 2 22.6 42 21 45 69 Andromeda NGC7640 elongated galaxy with mottled halo 23 22.1 40 51 46 57 Andromeda NGC7686 open cluster of 20 stars 23 30.2 49 8 30 121 Aquarius 55 Aquarii, Zeta 4.3 4.5 2.1 close, elegant pair of yellow stars 22 28.8 0 -1 12 120 Aquarius 94 Aquarii 5.3 7.3 12.7 pale rose & emerald 23 19.1 -13 28 32 152 Aquarius M72 globular cluster 20 53.5 -12 32 31 151 Aquarius M73 Y-shaped asterism of 4 stars 20 59 -12 38 16 117 Aquarius NGC7606 Galaxy 23 19.1 -8 29 32 149 Aquarius NGC7009 Saturn Neb planetary nebula, large & bright pale green oval 21 4.2 -11 21.8 38 135 -
Investigating the Beehive Cluster with Gaia Blaise Whitesell — Astronomy Capstone 2019
Investigating the Beehive Cluster with Gaia Blaise Whitesell — Astronomy Capstone 2019 In this problem set, we will explore the capabilities of the publicly available data from Gaia DR2, which can be found at http://gea.esac.esa.int/archive/ or queried directly from within Python. We will focus on a single target: the Beehive cluster (M44, also known as Praesepe or NGC 2632). This open cluster is located at a distance of roughly 200 pc in the constellation Cancer with coordinates (α; δ) = (130:1°; 19:67°). We will download Gaia data in the vicinity of the cluster, select only the stars belonging to the cluster, and then characterize the properties of those stars in the cluster. 1. Getting Data For our analysis we need these columns from the Gaia DR2 database gaiadr2.gaia_source: source_id A numeric identifier for the object ra Right ascension (degrees) dec Declination (degrees) parallax Parallax (mas) pmra Proper motion in right ascension (mas/yr) pmdec Proper motion in declination (mas/yr) phot_g_mean_mag Magnitude in Gaia G band (mags) bp_rp Gaia BP–RP color (mags) Select objects within 4 degrees of the cluster center. At the rough distance of the Beehive cluster, how many parsecs does that correspond to? We want to include objects at least that far in front and behind the cluster. Since we don’t know distances as precisely, we should expand the range by a factor of 3 or 4 to avoid missing cluster stars. What parallaxes (in mas) does this distance range correspond to? Use those parallax values as conditions to exclude objects far away from the cluster. -
Naming the Extrasolar Planets
Naming the extrasolar planets W. Lyra Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, K¨onigstuhl 17, 69177, Heidelberg, Germany [email protected] Abstract and OGLE-TR-182 b, which does not help educators convey the message that these planets are quite similar to Jupiter. Extrasolar planets are not named and are referred to only In stark contrast, the sentence“planet Apollo is a gas giant by their assigned scientific designation. The reason given like Jupiter” is heavily - yet invisibly - coated with Coper- by the IAU to not name the planets is that it is consid- nicanism. ered impractical as planets are expected to be common. I One reason given by the IAU for not considering naming advance some reasons as to why this logic is flawed, and sug- the extrasolar planets is that it is a task deemed impractical. gest names for the 403 extrasolar planet candidates known One source is quoted as having said “if planets are found to as of Oct 2009. The names follow a scheme of association occur very frequently in the Universe, a system of individual with the constellation that the host star pertains to, and names for planets might well rapidly be found equally im- therefore are mostly drawn from Roman-Greek mythology. practicable as it is for stars, as planet discoveries progress.” Other mythologies may also be used given that a suitable 1. This leads to a second argument. It is indeed impractical association is established. to name all stars. But some stars are named nonetheless. In fact, all other classes of astronomical bodies are named. -
Exodata: a Python Package to Handle Large Exoplanet Catalogue Data
ExoData: A Python package to handle large exoplanet catalogue data Ryan Varley Department of Physics & Astronomy, University College London 132 Hampstead Road, London, NW1 2PS, United Kingdom [email protected] Abstract Exoplanet science often involves using the system parameters of real exoplanets for tasks such as simulations, fitting routines, and target selection for proposals. Several exoplanet catalogues are already well established but often lack a version history and code friendly interfaces. Software that bridges the barrier between the catalogues and code enables users to improve the specific repeatability of results by facilitating the retrieval of exact system parameters used in an arti- cles results along with unifying the equations and software used. As exoplanet science moves towards large data, gone are the days where researchers can recall the current population from memory. An interface able to query the population now becomes invaluable for target selection and population analysis. ExoData is a Python interface and exploratory analysis tool for the Open Exoplanet Cata- logue. It allows the loading of exoplanet systems into Python as objects (Planet, Star, Binary etc) from which common orbital and system equations can be calculated and measured parame- ters retrieved. This allows researchers to use tested code of the common equations they require (with units) and provides a large science input catalogue of planets for easy plotting and use in research. Advanced querying of targets are possible using the database and Python programming language. ExoData is also able to parse spectral types and fill in missing parameters according to programmable specifications and equations. Examples of use cases are integration of equations into data reduction pipelines, selecting planets for observing proposals and as an input catalogue to large scale simulation and analysis of planets. -
Rotation Curves of High-Resolution LSB and SPARC Galaxies with Fuzzy and Multistate (Ultralight Boson) Scalar field Dark Matter
MNRAS 475, 1447–1468 (2018) doi:10.1093/mnras/stx3208 Advance Access publication 2017 December 12 Rotation curves of high-resolution LSB and SPARC galaxies with fuzzy and multistate (ultralight boson) scalar field dark matter T. Bernal,1‹† L. M. Fernandez-Hern´ andez,´ 1 T. Matos2‡ andM.A.Rodr´ıguez-Meza1‡ 1Departamento de F´ısica, Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares, AP 18-1027, Ciudad de Mexico´ 11801, Mexico 2Departamento de F´ısica, Centro de Investigacion´ y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN, AP 14-740, Ciudad de Mexico´ 07000, Mexico Accepted 2017 December 8. Received 2017 December 8; in original form 2017 January 4 ABSTRACT Cold dark matter (CDM) has shown to be an excellent candidate for the dark matter (DM) of the Universe at large scales; however, it presents some challenges at the galactic level. The scalar field dark matter (SFDM), also called fuzzy, wave, Bose–Einstein condensate, or ultralight axion DM, is identical to CDM at cosmological scales but different at the galactic ones. SFDM forms core haloes, it has a natural cut-off in its matter power spectrum, and it predicts well-formed galaxies at high redshifts. In this work we reproduce the rotation curves of high- resolution low surface brightness (LSB) and SPARC galaxies with two SFDM profiles: (1) the soliton+NFW profile in the fuzzy DM (FDM) model, arising empirically from cosmological simulations of real, non-interacting scalar field (SF) at zero temperature, and (2) the multistate SFDM (mSFDM) profile, an exact solution to the Einstein–Klein–Gordon equations for a real, self-interacting SF, with finite temperature into the SF potential, introducing several quantum states as a realistic model for an SFDM halo. -
Why Gravity Cannot Be Quantized Canonically, and What We Can We Do About It
WHY GRAVITY CANNOT BE QUANTIZED CANONICALLY, AND WHAT WE CAN WE DO ABOUT IT Philip D. Mannheim Department of Physics University of Connecticut Presentation at Miami 2013, Fort Lauderdale December 2013 1 GHOST PROBLEMS, UNITARITY OF FOURTH-ORDER THEORIES AND PT QUANTUM MECHANICS 1. P. D. Mannheim and A. Davidson, Fourth order theories without ghosts, January 2000 (arXiv:0001115 [hep-th]). 2. P. D. Mannheim and A. Davidson, Dirac quantization of the Pais-Uhlenbeck fourth order oscillator, Phys. Rev. A 71, 042110 (2005). (0408104 [hep-th]). 3. P. D. Mannheim, Solution to the ghost problem in fourth order derivative theories, Found. Phys. 37, 532 (2007). (arXiv:0608154 [hep-th]). 4. C. M. Bender and P. D. Mannheim, No-ghost theorem for the fourth-order derivative Pais-Uhlenbeck oscillator model, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 110402 (2008). (arXiv:0706.0207 [hep-th]). 5. C. M. Bender and P. D. Mannheim, Giving up the ghost, Jour. Phys. A 41, 304018 (2008). (arXiv:0807.2607 [hep-th]) 6. C. M. Bender and P. D. Mannheim, Exactly solvable PT-symmetric Hamiltonian having no Hermitian counterpart, Phys. Rev. D 78, 025022 (2008). (arXiv:0804.4190 [hep-th]) 7. C. M. Bender and P. D. Mannheim, PT symmetry and necessary and sufficient conditions for the reality of energy eigenvalues, Phys. Lett. A 374, 1616 (2010). (arXiv:0902.1365 [hep-th]) 8. P. D. Mannheim, PT symmetry as a necessary and sufficient condition for unitary time evolution, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. A. 371, 20120060 (2013). (arXiv:0912.2635 [hep-th]) 9. C. M. Bender and P. D. Mannheim, PT symmetry in relativistic quantum mechanics, Phys. -
Structure and Star Formation in Disk Galaxies I. Sample Selection And
Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 000, 1–9 (2003) Printed 31 October 2018 (MN LATEX style file v1.4) Structure and star formation in disk galaxies I. Sample selection and near infrared imaging J. H. Knapen1,2, R. S. de Jong3, S. Stedman1 and D. M. Bramich4 1University of Hertfordshire, Department of Physical Sciences, Hatfield, Herts AL10 9AB 2Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, Apartado 321, E-38700 Santa Cruz de La Palma, Spain 3Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA 4School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St. Andrews, Scotland KY16 9SS Accepted March 2003. Received ; in original form ABSTRACT We present near-infrared imaging of a sample of 57 relatively large, Northern spiral galaxies with low inclination. After describing the selection criteria and some of the basic properties of the sample, we give a detailed description of the data collection and reduction procedures. The Ks λ =2.2µm images cover most of the disk for all galaxies, with a field of view of at least 4.2 arcmin. The spatial resolution is better than an arcsec for most images. We fit bulge and exponential disk components to radial profiles of the light distribution. We then derive the basic parameters of these components, as well as the bulge/disk ratio, and explore correlations of these parameters with several galaxy parameters. Key words: galaxies: spiral – galaxies: structure – infrared: galaxies 1 INTRODUCTION only now starting to be published (e.g., 2MASS: Skrutskie et al. 1997, Jarrett et al. 2003; Seigar & James 1998a, 1998b; Near-infrared (NIR) imaging of galaxies is a better tracer Moriondo et al. -
Proper Motion Surveys of the Young Open Clusters Alpha Persei and the Pleiades
A&A 416, 125–136 (2004) Astronomy DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20034238 & c ESO 2004 Astrophysics Proper motion surveys of the young open clusters Alpha Persei and the Pleiades N. R. Deacon and N. C. Hambly Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Blackford Hill, Edinburgh EH9 3HJ, UK Received 28 August 2003 / Accepted 28 October 2003 Abstract. In this paper we present surveys of two open clusters using photometry and accurate astrometry from the SuperCOSMOS microdensitometer. These use plates taken by the Palomar Oschin Schmidt Telescope giving a wide field (5◦ from the cluster centre in both cases), accurate positions and a long time baseline for the proper motions. Distribution functions are fitted to proper motion vector point diagrams yielding formal membership probabilities. Luminosity and mass functions are then produced along with a catalogue of high probability members. Background star contamination limited the depth of the study of Alpha Per to R = 18. Due to this the mass function found for this cluster could only be fitted with a power ξ = −α α = . +0.14 law ( (m) m ) with 0 86−0.19. However with the better seperation of the Pleiades’ cluster proper motion from the field population results were obtained down to R = 21. As the mass function produced for this cluster extends to lower masses it is possible to see the gradient becoming increasingly shallow. This mass function is well fitted by a log normal distribution. Key words. astrometry – stars: low mass, brown dwarfs – Galaxy: open clusters and associations: individual: Alpha Per, Pleiades 1. Introduction Most recently Barrado y Navascu´es et al.