Global Extinction in Spiral Galaxies

The stellar and dust content of spiral galaxies as function of radius has been investigated using near-infrared and optical broadband surface photometry of 86 face-on spiral galaxies. Colors of galaxies correlate with the azimuthally averaged local surface brightness both within and among galaxies, with the lower surface brightness regions being bluer. The colors formed from different passband combinations correlate strongly indicating that they probably arise from the same p...

We combine near-infrared (2MASS) and mid-infrared (Spitzer-IRAC) photometry to characterize the IR extinction law (1.2-8 microns) over nearly 150 degrees of contiguous Milky Way midplane longitude. The relative extinctions in 5 passbands across these wavelength and longitude ranges are derived by calculating color excess ratios for G and K giant red clump stars in contiguous midplane regions and deriving the wavelength dependence of extinction in each one. Strong, monotonic v...

A complete sample of spiral galaxies in the Ursa Major cluster is imaged at various optical wavelengths and in the Near-Infrared K'-band. HI rotation curves were obtained for all gas rich systems. The Near-Infrared surface brightness distribution of disk galaxies turns out to be bimodal; galaxies avoid a domain around a face-on disk central surface brightness of 18.5 mag/arcsec^2. This bimodality is particularly striking when only the more isolated, non-interacting systems ar...

We present new magnitudes derived from 1.65 micron images for 23 galaxies in the Ursa Major cluster. Magnitudes now exist for all but one spiral meeting our criteria for cluster membership and having HI velocity width greater than 187 km/s and inclination greater than 45 deg. These spirals fit a Tully-Fisher relation with dispersion in intrinsic magnitudes (after known observational uncertainties and the effect of cluster depth are removed) of 0.36 and a slope of 10.2 +/- 0.6...

We study the relative dust attenuation-inclination relation in 78,721 nearby galaxies using the axis ratio dependence of optical-NIR colour, as measured by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). In order to avoid to the greatest extent possible attenuation-driven biases, we carefully select galaxies using dust attenuation-independent near- and mid-IR luminosities and colours. Relative u-b...

We study the distribution of interstellar matter near the galactic plane on the basis of open star clusters and reviewed the correlation of extinction with different physical parameters of the clusters to understand the galactic structure. It is seen from the extinction towards open clusters that about 90% of the absorbing material lie within -5<b<5 deg of the galactic plane. The mean thickness of the absorbing material, which is determined in terms of half-width value \beta,...

We present CCD photometry in UBVRI of several thousand Galactic field stars in four large (>1 degree^2) regions centered on diffuse interstellar dust clouds, commonly referred to as ``cirrus'' clouds (with optical depth A_V less than unity). Our goal in studying these stars is to investigate the properties of the cirrus clouds. A comparison of the observed stellar surface density between on-cloud and off-cloud regions as a function of apparent magnitude in each of the five ba...

We present optical and near-infrared (NIR) surface brightness and colour profiles,in bands ranging from U to K, for the disk and bulge components of a complete sample of 30 nearby S0 to Sbc galaxies with inclinations larger than 50 degrees. We describe in detail the observations and the determination of colour parameters. Calibrated monochromatic and real-colour images are presented, as well as colour index maps. This data set, tailored for the study of the population charact...

Following from our recent work, we present a detailed analysis of star-formation and interstellar medium (ISM) scaling relations, done on a representative sample of nearby galaxies. H$\alpha$ images are analysed in order to derive the integrated galaxy luminosity, known as a more instantenous and accurate star-formation rate (SFR) tracer, and the required photometric and structural parameters. Dust and inclination corrected H$\alpha$ luminosities, SFRs and related quantities ...

Growth curves of the near-infrared (NIR) magnitude as a function of the aperture have been built and used to derive NIR total magnitudes from aperture data taken from the literature. By cross-correlating with optical and redshift data, absolute magnitudes and optical-to-NIR colors have been computed for some 1000 galaxies of different types. Significant color gradients are observed, underlining that small aperture colors may lead to a biased picture of the stellar populations...