Grand-Design Spirals in the Core of NGC 5248
Abstract
We report the detection of a bisymmetric nuclear spiral structure in the spiral galaxy NGC 5248. The two red spiral arms can be followed for about 3 arcsec, before they appear to end inside the radius of the circumnuclear starburst `ring' at about 5.5 arcsec or 400 pc distance from the nucleus. We combine our near-infrared Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope adaptive optics images with traditional near-infrared and optical images and show that spiral structure is present in this galaxy at spatial scales reaching from a hundred parsecs to 15 kpc. Comparison with a Hubble Space Telescope ultraviolet image shows how the starburst ring is related to the nuclear spiral structure. We also show a two-dimensional H_α velocity field that reveals no evidence for systematic streaming motions near the nuclear spiral or the starburst ring, nor for a rapidly rising rotation curve.
- Publication:
-
Astrophysics and Space Science
- Pub Date:
- March 2001
- DOI:
- 10.1023/A:1017576024087
- Bibcode:
- 2001Ap&SS.276..475L