Jupiter Family comets (JFCs) are short period comets which have recently entered the inner solar system, having previously orbited in the Kuiper Belt since the formation of the planets. We used two nights on the 3.6 m New Technology Telescope (NTT) at the European Southern Observatory, to obtain VRI photometry of three JFCs; 7P/Pons-Winnecke, 14P/Wolf and 92P/Sanguin. These were observed to be stellar in appearance.
We present CCD photometry and spectroscopy for stars in Lucke-Hodge 58, an isolated OB association in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) northwest of 30 Doradus. The photometric catalog contains 839 stars with UBV magnitudes complete to V~19. We have obtained spectra and classified 35 stars; combined with previous published spectral types, we find 22 O-type stars. The earliest type is O3-4 V, and there are three WR stars in the association. The slope of the initial mass function, Gamma=-1.7+/-0.3, is in good agreement with other LMC associations. The presence of several evolved supergiants with masses about 15-25M_{sun}_ suggests that some star formation took place as early as 10 million years ago, but the majority of stars formed coevally within the past few million years.
We present a catalog of the 1525 most optically luminous galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey with r-band luminosity L_r_>8L* and redshift z<0.3, including 84 super spirals, 15 super lenticulars, 14 super post-merger galaxies, and 1400 giant ellipticals. With mass in stars of 10^11.3^-10^12^M_{sun}_, super spirals and lenticulars are the most massive disk galaxies currently known. The specific star formation rates of super spirals place them on or below the star-forming main sequence. They must have formed stars at a high rate throughout their history in order to grow their massive, gigantic stellar disks and maintain their blue u-r integrated colors. Their disks are red on the inside and blue on the outside, consistent with inside-out growth. They tend to have small bulge-to-total (B/T) r-band luminosity ratios, characteristic of disk building via minor mergers and cold accretion. A large percentage of super disk galaxies (41%) have double nuclei, double disks, or other signatures of ongoing mergers. Most (72%) are found in moderate- to low-density environments, while the rest are found at the outskirts of clusters. It is likely that super spirals survive in these environments because they continue to accrete cold gas and experience only minor mergers at late times, by virtue of their enormous masses and angular momenta. We suggest that super post-mergers are the product of super spiral major mergers and may be the precursors of some giant elliptical galaxies found in low-density environments.
We present CCD photometry and spectrographic observations for stars in the open cluster NGC 346, which excites the largest H II region in the Small Magellanic Cloud. These observations show that NGC 346 is an extremely young cluster, containing more than 20 hot O-type stars. A radial-velocity study of the brightest stars, and also of the nearby supergiant Of star Sk 80, discloses atmospheric expansion due to strong stellar winds, but no large-amplitude radial-velocity variations due to short-period binary motion. However, two stars are probably longer period binaries.
We present the redshift catalogs for the X-ray sources detected in the Chandra Deep Field-North (CDF-N), the Chandra Large Area Synoptic X-ray Survey (CLASXS), and the Chandra Lockman Area North Survey (CLANS). The catalogs for the CDF-N and CLASXS fields include redshifts from previous work, while the redshifts for the CLANS field are all new. For fluxes above 10^-14^ergs/cm^2^/s (2-8keV) we have redshifts for 76% of the sources. We extend the redshift information for the full sample using photometric redshifts. The goal of the OPTX Project is to use these three surveys, which are among the most spectroscopically complete surveys to date, to analyze the effect of spectral type on the shape and evolution of the X-ray luminosity functions and to compare the optical spectral types with the X-ray spectral properties. We also present the CLANS X-ray catalog. The nine ACIS-I fields cover a solid angle of ~0.6deg^2^ and reach fluxes of 7x10^-16^ergs/cm^2^/s (0.5-2keV) and 3.5x10^-15^ergs/cm^2^/s (2-8keV). We find a total of 761 X-ray point sources. In addition, we present the optical and infrared photometric catalog for the CLANS X-ray sources, as well as updated optical and infrared photometric catalogs for the X-ray sources in the CLASXS and CDF-N fields.
We present new theoretical period-luminosity-metallicity (PLZ) relations for RR Lyrae stars (RRLs) at Spitzer and WISE wavelengths. The PLZ relations were derived using nonlinear, time-dependent convective hydrodynamical models for a broad range of metal abundances (Z=0.0001-0.0198). In deriving the light curves, we tested two sets of atmospheric models and found no significant difference between the resulting mean magnitudes. We also compare our theoretical relations to empirical relations derived from RRLs in both the field and in the globular cluster M4. Our theoretical PLZ relations were combined with multi-wavelength observations to simultaneously fit the distance modulus, {mu}0, and extinction, A_V_, of both the individual Galactic RRL and of the cluster M4. The results for the Galactic RRL are consistent with trigonometric parallax measurements from Gaia's first data release. For M4, we find a distance modulus of {mu}0=11.257+/-0.035mag with A_V_=1.45+/-0.12mag, which is consistent with measurements from other distance indicators. This analysis has shown that, when considering a sample covering a range of iron abundances, the metallicity spread introduces a dispersion in the PL relation on the order of 0.13mag. However, if this metallicity component is accounted for in a PLZ relation, the dispersion is reduced to ~0.02mag at mid-infrared wavelengths.
The morphology of galaxies provide us with a unique tool to connect and understand other related physical properties and their changes over the course of cosmic time. Only recently, thanks to big and/or deep surveys, we have access to a wealth of data for unprecedented number galaxies. The morphological catalogue of the OTELO survey galaxies detected in Hubble Space Telescope (HST)-ACS F814W images is presented. We explore various methods from previous works to separate early-type (ET) and late-type (LT) galaxies classified via spectral energy distribution (SED) fittings using galaxy templates. Together with this article we release the catalogue containing main morphological parameters in F606W and F814W bands derived for more than 8000 sources. The morphological analysis is based on the single-Sersic profile fit. The GALAPAGOS-2 software was used in order to provide multi-wavelength morphological parameters fitted simultaneously in two HST-ACS bands. GALAPAGOS-2 detects, prepares guess values for GALFIT-M, and provides the best-fitting single-Sersic model in both bands for each source. Stellar masses were estimated using synthetic rest-frame magnitudes recovered from SED-fitting of galaxy templates. The morphological catalogue is complemented with concentration indexes from a separate SExtractor dual, high dynamical range mode. A total of 8812 sources were successfully fitted with single-Sersic profiles. The analysis of a carefully selected sample of ~3000 sources up to z_phot=2 is presented in this work, from which 873 sources were not detected in previous studies. We found no statistical evidence for the evolution of low-mass end of mass-size relation for ET and LT since z=2. Furthermore, we found a good agreement on the median size evolution for ET and LT galaxies, for a given stellar-mass, with data in the literature. Compared to previous works on faint field galaxies, we found similarities regarding rest-frame colours, Sersic and concentration indices.
The Pan-STARRS1 survey is collecting multi-epoch, multi-color observations of the sky north of declination -30{deg} to unprecedented depths. These data are being photometrically and astrometrically calibrated and will serve as a reference for many other purposes. In this paper, we present our determination of the Pan-STARRS1 photometric system: g_P1_, r_P1_, i_P1_, z_P1_, y_P1_, and w_P1_. The Pan-STARRS1 photometric system is fundamentally based on the Hubble Space Telescope Calspec spectrophotometric observations, which in turn are fundamentally based on models of white dwarf atmospheres. We define the Pan-STARRS1 magnitude system and describe in detail our measurement of the system passbands, including both the instrumental sensitivity and atmospheric transmission functions. By-products, including transformations to other photometric systems, Galactic extinction, and stellar locus, are also provided. We close with a discussion of remaining systematic errors.
The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) is a system for wide-field astronomical imaging developed and operated by the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii. Pan-STARRS1 (PS1) is the first part of Pan-STARRS to be completed and is the basis for Data Release 1 (DR1). The PS1 survey used a 1.8m telescope and its 1.4 Gigapixel camera (GPC1) to image the sky in five broadband filters (g, r, i, z, y). PS1 took approximately 370000 exposures from 2010 to 2015. The PS1 camera surveyed the sky using 5 filters: g, r, i, z, and y. The effective wavelengths (and spectral resolutions) of these 5 filters are 481nm (R=3.5), 617nm (R=4.4), 752nm (R=5.8), 866nm (R=8.3), and 962nm (R=11.6), respectively. Please refer to Table 4 in Tonry+ (2012, J/ApJ/750/99) for bandpass details. Schlafly+ (2012ApJ...756..158S) provides updated zeropoints in Table 1. Data for this catalog has been retrieved from STScI and was built from ObjectThin and StackObjectThin tables with nDetections>2.
Using a deep Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) radio survey covering an area of ~3deg^2^ to a 4{sigma} sensitivity of >=100mmJy at 1.4GHz, we study the nature of faint radio galaxies. About 50 per cent of the detected radio sources are identified with an optical counterpart revealed by CCD photometry to m_R=22.5mag. Near-infrared (K-band) data are also available for a selected sample of the radio sources, while spectroscopic observations have been carried out for about 40 per cent of the optically identified sample. These provide redshifts and information on the stellar content. Emission-line ratios imply that most of the emission-line sources are star-forming galaxies, with a small contribution (~10 per cent) from Sy1/Sy2 type objects. We also find a significant number of absorption-line systems, likely to be ellipticals. These dominate at high flux densities (>1mJy) but are also found at sub-mJy levels. Using the Balmer decrement we find a visual extinction A_V_=1.0 for the star-forming faint radio sources. This moderate reddening is consistent with the V-R and R-K colours of the optically identified sources. For emission-line galaxies, there is a correlation between the radio power and the Halpha luminosity, in agreement with the result of Benn et al. (1993MNRAS.263....9B). This suggests that the radio emission of starburst radio galaxies is a good indicator of star formation activity.