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Session 49 - Elliptical Galaxies & Bulges.
Display session, Thursday, January 08
Exhibit Hall,
A high resolution spectrophotometric atlas of the nucleus of the nearby compact dwarf elliptical galaxy M32 has been obtained using the Kitt Peak Coude Feed Telescope. The region from 3700Å\ to 9000Å\ has been observed at high signal-to-noise (50-100+ per pixel) and high resolution (\sim 0.5ÅBecause M32 has a velocity dispersion of 80 km/s, the spectrum is oversampled by a factor of 10. Spectra of a number of appropriate stellar spectral templates were obtained at the same time. By comparing the spectra of M32 and the stars, a detailed analysis of the absorbing species which make up each absorption blend in M32 is possible, leading to a better understanding of how to interpret the integrated light of composite systems. The high rate of oversampling and high signal-to-noise makes it feasible to deconvolve the spectrum of M32, at least partially removing the effects of the blending due to its velocity dispersion, further aiding the analysis of the spectral features.
The spectral atlas of the nucleus of M32 has been extended, at somewhat lower resolution, down to the atmospheric cutoff and out to 1\mu, also with the Coude Feed. The atlas has been further extended into the near ultraviolet to 2200Å\ with a resolution of 5Å\ using the Faint Object Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope. The near ultraviolet is sensitive to contributions from the brightest main sequence turnoff; the combination of detailed spectra from the ultraviolet and optical is being used to provide tight constraints for modeling the stellar population of M32.
