[64.18] The Dust Content of a Quarter Million SDSS DR4 Galaxies

AAS 207th Meeting, 8-12 January 2006
Session 64 ISM outside the Milky Way
Poster, Tuesday, 9:20am-6:30pm, January 10, 2006, Exhibit Hall

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[64.18] The Dust Content of a Quarter Million SDSS DR4 Galaxies

J. E. Cabanela (Saint Cloud State University), S. K. Sidhu (University of Colorado, Boulder), W. J. Bennett (Drake University)

We report on our continuing efforts to quantify the effects of internal extinction in galaxies. Evaluation of available models for the distribution of stars and dust in galaxies has been hampered in part by the use of relatively small samples of galaxies or the use of large galaxy samples with poorly-determined optical parameters. Consequently, accurately determining luminosity (L), diameter (D), and mean surface brightness (\mu) as a function of inclination for a large sample of galaxies provides a critical tool for choosing among the existing models.

We have constructed a sample of about a quarter million galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release Four (SDSS DR4) selected on the basis on their major-axis angular diameter (a_r > 15{\arcsec}) and their redshift (0.01 < z < 0.20 ). The SDSS DR4 data allows accurate estimates of L, D, and \mu as a function of inclination angle in the five SDSS bandpasses. This provides the first galaxy sample of this size with accurate measures of effects of internal extinction on the observed values of these physical parameters.

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