in the process of trying to understand the tully-fisher relation, the relation between luminosity and rotation velocity of spiral galaxies, we have found for the ursa major cluster that the scatter around the relation decreases substantially when we introduce a second parameter, the iras flux at 60 micron. this might be very important, since it leads to a better understanding of how to use the tully-fisher relation when determining galaxy distances. since distances from peculiar velocity measurements are very difficult to get, because the peculiar velocity of an individual galaxy is smaller than the uncertainty in the distance estimate, peculiar velocities might be subject to unknown systematic effects. therefore it is important to understand the way the tully-fisher relation works. the aim of the proposal is to expand this preliminary result for ursa major. the cluster population resembles that of field galaxies while the small velocity dispersion allows to discriminate foreground and background galaxies. its proximity enables us to obtain spatially resolved information for most of the individual galaxies. the ursa major cluster, which can be considered as a young cluster, is an excellent candidate to establish an improved tully-fisher relation. for this cluster we will increase the current iras-sample by a factor 2, and obtain much higher quality data. we have already obtained substantial datasets in the near-infrared and in neutral hydrogen, and together with the iso data we will have a superior data set that will allow us to obtain a much better understanding of the tully-fisher relation than is currently available.
Instrument
PHT22 , PHT32
Temporal Coverage
1996-07-03T02:36:13Z/1996-11-08T13:33:47Z
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.
European Space Agency, VERHEIJEN et al., 1999, 'AN IMPROVED DISTANCE INDICATOR FOR SPIRAL GALAXIES THE 2-PARAMETER TULLY-FISHER RELATION IN URSA MAJOR', 1.0, European Space Agency, https://doi.org/10.5270/esa-ntnfrst
