scientific abstract: the traditional view of elliptical galaxies was that they were devoid of interstellar matter. however, recent observations, either in the infrared range by iras, or in the submillimeter to centimeter range from the ground have demonstrated the existence of a subtantial amount of hot and cold interstellar matter. it is now clear that the central regions of most elliptical and lenticular galaxies are infrared emitters. this emission can arise form several mechanisms going from nuclear activity around a compact object, dust in a lane structure, cooling flow, star formation, stellar atmospheres. this proposal will aim at disentangling these various modes of emission in a wide range of objects, from centrally dominant elliptical galaxies to nearby ellipticals for a detailed study of the nature of their mid-infrared emission to a sample of galaxies selected to allow the detection and resolution of their infrared emitting regions. observation summary: all observations will be performed with the 6 lens, in order to achieve a better sensitivity. objects have been selected so that this pfov still allows resolution of the emitting structures. for each observation, realistic backgrounds were estimated using iras data. aot1 will be used for all observations 1- cooling flows: the cooling flow in abell 426 is the target of observations aimed first at detecting emission from hot dust (lw3) and unidentified bands in the 7 micron range (lw2). emission from pahs and silicates will also be searched using lw2, lw4 and lw7. finally abell 426 will also be imaged in the short wavelength continuum (lw1) to provide a reference image. exposure times were computed on the basis of the iras flux and the extension of the halpha emission. detection of another weaker cooling flow galaxy (undetected by iras) will be attempted in the very sensitive iras filter lw10. 2-star formation in two nearby elliptical galaxies, ngc 205 and ngc 185: since the aim is to disentangle emission from star forming regions from that of evolved stars. atmospheres, these two galaxies will be imaged using lw1 for the stellar contribution, lw3 for the hot dust in star forming regions and lw2 for spectral signatures from the dust components. since ngc 185 is fainter than ngc 205, twice as much time will be spent observing it. 3- mid ir properties of early-type galaxies: the strategy is similar to the previous section, with the use of the lw1, lw2 and lw3 filters. exposure time were derived from the iras flux, assuming it comes from inside the effective radius of the galaxies. the object were selected so that this radius can be resolved by the camera. to allow an accurate determination of the emission geometrical structure, the central parts of all galaxies will be re-observed with the 3 lens using lw2 and lw3.
Instrument
CAM01 , CAM03 , CAM04
Temporal Coverage
1996-02-05T14:45:50Z/1998-03-21T18:08:06Z
Version
1.0
Mission Description
The Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) was the worlds first true orbiting infrared observatory. Equipped with four highly-sophisticated and versatile scientific instruments, it was launched by Ariane in November 1995 and provided astronomers world-wide with a facility of unprecedented sensitivity and capabilities for a detailed exploration of the Universe at infrared wavelengths.
