Polar Disk Galaxy through 180 degrees

180 degree rotation of a simulated Polar Disk Galaxy. We make composite images of the polar disk simulation, by assigning our mock Hubble Space Telescope 450, 606 and 814 nm filters the colors blue, green and red respectively. We view the galaxy at 180 different camera angles, starting with both the inner and polar disks close to edge on. The blue colors of the polar disk reflects its young stellar population. The animation highlights the difficulty of discovering Polar Disk galaxies based on their projected morphology, as the existence of two disks only is evident at very few viewing angles. The reddening effects of dust are evident in the final frame.
We superimpose the movie on an HST background image and compare with a composite image of NGC4650A using the same band-color assignments Gallagher et al. 2002.
credits: Fabio Governato (University of Washington)
James Wadsley (McMaster University)
Alyson Brooks (University of Washington)
Tom Quinn (University of Washington)
Chris Brook (University of Washington)
Mock Images created using Sunrise, coutesy of Patrik Jonsson (UCSC)
for the detailed science, see http://arxiv.org/abs/0802.1051
contact: fabio@astro.washington.edu

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Galaxies
• Cosmology