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The chaotic ISM of the post(?)-starburst galaxy NGC 1569

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2016

Reginald J. Dufour
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX 77005, USA
Brent A. Buckalew
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX 77005, USA
Patrick L. Shopbell
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, mail code 105-24, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
Donald K. Walter
Affiliation:
Department of Physical Sciences, South Carolina State University, Orangeburg, SC 29117, USA

Abstract

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We present the results and analysis of HST-wfpc2 imagery of the starburst galaxy NGC 1569 (d = 2.2 Mpc), which permit unprecedented resolution (~ 1pc) of the ionized gas and stellar population. The primary data in our analysis consists of images taken through narrow-band filters isolating Hβ, Hα, [O iii]λ5007, and [S ii]λλ6717+30, as part of go Program 8133. A variety of color-coded and grey-scaled maps of the morphology, ionization structure, and dust distribution are presented. Unsharp masks of the Hα images show a very chaotic structure for the ionized gas, with numerous filaments and arc-like bright rim features across the entire galaxy, but without significant large-scale ionization variations. Variations in the ionization and line-of-sight reddening occur on smaller scales (~ 10 – 50 pc), with numerous low-ionization semi-stellar knots seen throughout the main body of the galaxy, even within the ‘hole’ in the ionized gas distribution around the central super star clusters previously noted from H i maps. Several of these features have strong [S ii] emission indicative of being supernova remnants. We combine these data with archival wide-band HST-wfpc2 imagery to quantitatively evaluate the source(s) of the (largely photo-) ionized gas.

Type
Part 3. Location and Distribution of Massive Stars
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2003 

References

Buckalew, B.A., Dufour, R.J., Shopbell, P.L., Walter, D.K. 2000, AJ 120, 2402.Google Scholar
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