Near-Infrared and Optical Morphology of Spiral Galaxies
Abstract
We announce the initial release of data from the Ohio State University (OSU) Bright Spiral Galaxy Survey, a BVRJHK imaging survey of a well-defined sample of 205 bright, nearby spiral galaxies. We present H-band morphological classification on the Hubble sequence for the OSU Survey sample. We compare the H-band classification to B-band classification from our own images and from standard galaxy catalogs. Our B-band classifications match well with those of the standard catalogs. On average, galaxies with optical classifications from Sa through Scd appear about one T type earlier in the H band than in the B band, but with large scatter. This result does not support recent claims made in the literature that the optical and near-IR morphologies of spiral galaxies are uncorrelated. We present detailed descriptions of the H-band morphologies of our entire sample, as well as B- and H-band images for a set of 17 galaxies chosen as type examples and BRH color-composite images of six galaxies chosen to demonstrate the range in morphological variation as a function of wavelength. Based partially on observations obtained at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), Inc., under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
- Pub Date:
- November 2002
- DOI:
- 10.1086/342340
- arXiv:
- arXiv:astro-ph/0206320
- Bibcode:
- 2002ApJS..143...73E
- Keywords:
-
- Galaxies: Fundamental Parameters;
- Galaxies: General;
- Galaxies: Spiral;
- Galaxies: Statistics;
- Galaxies: Structure;
- Infrared: Galaxies;
- Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- LaTeX with AASTeX style file, 56 pages with 4 multi-part figures. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement. Data available at http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~survey/EDR/