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How transparent are spiral galaxies?: An analysis from a near-infrared perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2017

R. F. Peletier
Affiliation:
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics 60, Garden Street Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
S. P. Willner
Affiliation:
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics 60, Garden Street Cambridge, MA 02138, USA

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Until recently is was commonly thought that most spiral galaxies were transparent or contained only modest amounts of absorbing dust, making them optically thin in the B-band (Holmberg 1958). However Disney et al. (1989) showed that there was very little evidence for this. Using a very large optical database Valentijn (1990) showed that surface brightness in B is almost independent of inclination, implying that spiral galaxies in general are optically thick in B.

Type
Poster Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 

References

Aaronson, M. et al. 1982, Ap. J. Suppl. , 50, 241.Google Scholar
Disney, M. J., Davies, J. and Phillipps, S. 1989, M.N.R.A.S. , 239, 939.Google Scholar
Holmberg, E. 1958, Medn. Lunds Astr. Obs. 2, 136.Google Scholar
Peletier, R. F. and Willner, S. P., submitted to the Astronomical Journal. Google Scholar
Valentijn, E. A., 1990, Nature , 346, 153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar