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Session 16 - Interstellar Grains, PAH's and the Interstellar Bands.
Display session, Monday, January 13
Metropolitan Ballroom,
Extended Red Emission (ERE) has been detected in reflection nebulae, dark nebulae, planetary nebulae, infrared cirrus clouds, and halo of the galaxy M82. The wide range of objects with detectable ERE implies that a general characteristic of dust is the ability to produce ERE. In order to strengthen this association, we are searching for ERE in the Galactic diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) on a large scale. As the expected ERE strength in the diffuse ISM is small, we are using the blue and red all-sky surface brightness measurements taken with the Imaging Photopolarimeter (IPP) on Pioneer 10. As the data were taken when Pioneer 10 was outside the inner solar system and hence beyond the source of zodiacal light, the sources contributing to the measured fluxes are only the integrated starlight (blue amp; red), diffuse galactic light (blue amp; red), and possibly ERE (red only). The integrated starlight is removed using various star catalogs (HD, GSC, and Minnesota APS). If ERE is present, the red channel will show a marked excess of flux over that expected for the diffuse galactic light. We will present preliminary results. This work was supported by NASA through LTSA Grant NAGW-3168 to The University of Toledo.
