NoSOCS: The Northern Sky Optical Cluster Survey

Session 55 - New Digital Sky Surveys.
Display session, Wednesday, June 10
Atlas Ballroom,

[55.14] NoSOCS: The Northern Sky Optical Cluster Survey

R. Gal, S. C. Odewahn, S. G. Djorgovski, R. Brunner (Palomar Observatory, Caltech), R. R. DeCarvalho (CNPq/ON, Brazil)

We report on an effort to create an unbiased catalog of clusters of galaxies from the galaxy catalogs derived from the digitized POSS-II (DPOSS). We use a simple color selection of candidate cluster galaxies, coupled with the adaptive kernel method to generate galaxy surface density maps. A bootstrap technique is then used to generate the statistical significance map associated with a given surface density map. This map is then used to detect overdensities of galaxies on the sky which indicate candidate galaxy clusters. In our test fields, we recover all of the known Abell clusters, and find a number of new ones. We have also begun a program of follow-up spectroscopy and five-color imaging of our cluster candidates, to check if our candidates are truly clusters and measure their redshifts. Eventually, we plan to generate an objectively defined, statistical catalog of groups and clusters, with well defined selection criteria, over the entire high-latitude northern sky.

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The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: rrg@astro.caltech.edu

Program listing for Wednesday