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S. K. Sidhu (Swarthmore College), J. E. Cabanela (St. Cloud State University)
This study examines the internal extinction of light due to interstellar dust in external galaxies by statistically quantifying changes in observed luminosity, diameter, and surface brightness with increasing inclination to the line of sight. It is important to correct for extinction when studying the intrinsic properties of galaxies. The prevalence and distribution of dust in galaxies is not well understood, and knowing how these three parameters (luminosity, diameter, and surface brightness) change with inclination is useful in discriminating among models. A sample of 11,659 galaxies was selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release One (SDSS DR1). These were sorted into magnitude and diameter-limited samples to account for selection effects, and further divided by a rough index of morphological type. For each subset, the changes in the three parameters with varying inclination were modeled in all five bandpasses for which data was available. Additionally, the changes with inclination of magnitude in relation to diameter were modeled. Future work is necessary to investigate the photometric idiosyncrasies of the SDSS and to more accurately determine morphological type before the results can be fully understood.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35#5
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.