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Session 44 - The Local Diffuse ISM.
Display session, Tuesday, June 11
Great Hall,
The latest results of a multiwavelength investigation of the Pleiades Reflection Nebula are discussed. Observations of dust scattered light and thermal emission together can be used to constrain the three-dimensional scattering geometry of the nebula as well as the optical properties of the grains. The neutral gas in which the grains are imbedded may also be studied in radio emission and optical absorption lines to map nebular morphologies in velocity space. Nebular photometry has been obtained in the ultraviolet (1400-1900 amp; 1900-2500 Åwith WISP (the Wide-field Imaging Survey Polarimeter, a sounding rocket payload instrument), in the optical (3600-5200 Åwith the 0.6m Burrell Schmidt telescope, and at several wavelengths in the far-infrared (60, 100, 140, amp; 240 \mum) with IRAS and DIRBE. Neutral gas on a wide range of spatial scales has been observed in HI 21cm emission with mosaics of Green Bank 43m and Very Large Array D-configuration pointings, and is also detected in NaI D-line interstellar absorption toward numerous stars in the cluster vicinity with the 0.9m Coudé Feed Eschelle spectrograph. The structures and dynamics revealed by the combined data have implications not just for the Pleiades nebulosity, but also its environmental context --- the diffuse interstellar medium as a whole. This work is supported by the WISP project under NASA grant NAG5-647.
