Introduction - Surface Brightness of Galaxies

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Project Leader: Dr Richard Beare (University of Warwick)
Principal Scientific Advisor: Professor Michael Merrifield (University of Nottingham)

Summary

In this project you image some galaxies, comment scientifically on the images, and then obtain surface brightness profiles which you analyse using a spreadsheet tool. This will enable you to see how the surface brightness decreases with distance from the centre of the galaxy and make measurements of some relevant parameters. This information can then be correlated with the Hubble galaxy classification.

The basic project is to examine the surface brightness of a disc galaxy (lenticular or spiral) and see if it decreases exponentially with distance outside of the central bulge. A specially written spreadsheet enables makes this easy to do.

More advanced projects examine the surface brightness of elliptical galaxies and the bulge as well as the disc in a disc galaxy. You are advised to try the basic project first however.

The resources you will require for this project are indicated below:

	WWW	File	Word	PDF
Required Resources
Outline of project
Instructions for project
DS9 software (link to web download site)
Instructions for viewing images using DS9
Instructions for surface brightness profiles using DS9
Spreadsheet for disc galaxy profiles (right-click to download)
Instructions for spreadsheet

Additional Resources	WWW	File	Word	PDF
Selections of suitable galaxies to image
Observation planner for galaxies (spreadsheet showing which galaxies are visible when - right-click to download)
Information on Hubble Classification of Galaxies (the web version is interactive and shows large images)

Resources for Advanced Projects	WWW	File	Word	PDF
Spreadsheet for elliptical galaxy profiles
Instructions for spreadsheet - ellipticals
Spreadsheet for disc galaxy profiles including bulge
Instructions for spreadsheet - disc and bulge