Mapping of Extended Reflection Nebulosity in the Pleiades Region

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Session 29 -- General Interstellar Medium
Display presentation, Tuesday, 31, 1994, 9:20-6:30

[29.12] Mapping of Extended Reflection Nebulosity in the Pleiades Region

S. J. Gibson, K. H. Nordsieck (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

We present a preliminary analysis of B$_{\rm J}$-band photometry of the faint reflection nebula around the Pleiades. We have mapped a $5^{\rm o} \times 1.7^{\rm o}$ region of the extended nebulosity with a series of $1^{\rm o}$ fields taken with the Burrell Schmidt telescope. Given a cluster distance of 130 parsecs, our map covers an area of $11.3 \times 3.8$~pc with a resolution of 0.005~pc per binned pixel. This surface brightness data can be used in combination with IRAS photometry of the dust thermal emission and models of grain optical properties to gain information about the three-dimensional structure of the nebula. Further constraints on this geometry will be placed by vacuum-ultraviolet polarimetric imaging of the same region this fall with the Wide-field Imaging Survey Polarimeter (WISP). These are the first results of a multi-wavelength study of this region to investigate grain properties and nebular geometry.

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