Surface photometric study of NGC 5128

Thesis/Dissertation · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1985

OSTI ID:6752406

Pennington, R L

Calibrated digital surface photometry in the standard UBV pass bands was used to prepare two dimensional maps to examine the structure and stellar populations in NGC 5128 (Cen A). The main body of the galaxy exhibits colors and stellar populations lightly bluer than those of an old elliptical galaxy out to r approx. 176. Beyond this radius, excess emission in the inner halo contributes significantly to the U passband only, probably due to line emission from material swept into the halo from the dust lane. Four large diffuse arcs were detected on the B-V raster. The outermost two are in the northern hemisphere and have similar B-V colors of approx.-0.11. The innermost pair are on opposite sides of the nucleus at r approx. 107 with B-V = 0.08m suggesting that a ring or sphere may exist at this radius, centered on the nucleus. The dust land is found to be a hollow cylinder of inner and outer radii 2.2 (D/3) kpc and 2.6 (D/3) kpc, respectively, tilted at 80/sup 0/ +/- 2 to the plane of the sky. The most intense star formation regions lie on the northern rim on the near side of the land and the southern rim on the far side. The circular shape of the land constrains the main body of the galaxy to being prolate or only very mildly elliptical.

• Research Organization: Rice Univ., Houston, TX (USA)
• OSTI ID: 6752406
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

640105* -- Astrophysics & Cosmology-- Galaxies
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
COLOR
GALAXIES
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
ORGANOLEPTIC PROPERTIES
PHOTOMETRY
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
SHAPE
STAR EVOLUTION
SURFACES