Studies in observational cosmology require absorption-free, K-corrected total magnitudes, e.g. for mass determinations from luminosity. A method for the determination of absorption-free magnitudes for a large number of faint galaxies used in a photographic survey containing data of about 540 000 galaxies with b J ≤ 22 is presented. The uncorrected total magnitudes are determined from aperture photometry. The absorption-free magnitudes are obtained by applying corrections for galactic and internal absorption. For the latter, the morphological type and the apparent ellipticity are used as parameters. Faint galaxies, for which no morphological classification is available (b J > 19.3), are corrected according to their apparent ellipticity
The Muenster Redshift Project provides to date 0.9 million low-resolution redshifts obtained from automatic reductions of pairs of direct and low-dispersion objective prism Schmidt plates. Preliminary results obtained from subsamples of the survey are described.
A sample of 15 000 faint spiral galaxies is used for the statistical determination of internal absorption by investigating the projected surface brightness. Analyses with different disc models yield small absorption values. For a more realistic three-component model, however, a central face-on optical depth of τ0 = 7 is obtained, which is in agreement with suggestions that spiral galaxies are not optically thin.
Conventionally, CMD analyses of nearby star clusters are based on observations in 2 passbands. They are plagued by considerable degeneracies between age, metallicity, distance (and extinction) that can largely be resolved by including additional passbands with U being most appropriate for young SCs and I or a NIR band for old globular clusters. For star clusters that cannot be resolved, integrated photometry in suitably selected passbands was shown to be as accurate as spectroscopy in independently revealing ages, metallicities, internal extinction, and photometric masses and their respective 1 sigma uncertainties, when analysed with a dedicated analysis tool for their Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs) (cf. Anders et al. 2004a, b, de Grijs et al. 2003b). For external galaxies, rich star cluster populations can thus be efficiently analysed using deep exposures in 4 suitable filters. Again, the inclusion of the U-band significantly reduces the uncertainties in the cluster parameters. The age and metallicity distributions of star cluster systems yield valuable information about the formation history of their parent galaxies (Fritze - v. A. 2004). Here, we present our GALEV evolutionary synthesis models for star clusters of various metallicities (Anders, Fritze - v. A. 2003), recently extended to include the time evolution of CMDs, the dedicated SED Analysis Tool AnalySED we developed, show results on the basis of HST data, and present first data for a young star cluster system in the ongoing spiral-spiral merger NGC 1487 obtained with SALT during the SALTICAM Performance Verification Phase.
The redshift-volume test for determining the deceleration parameter q0 is applied to 89,125 galaxies with redshifts z ≤ 0.2 (redshift errors σz = 0.031) and magnitudes 14.0 ≤ rF ≤ 18.0 mag, obtained within the Muenster Redshift Project (MRSP). With samples of this size, cosmic curvature effects can be measured even at intermediate redshifts. Comparatively small z-values and red photometric magnitudes assure that biased object selection and galaxy evolution do not affect the measurements in uncontrolled ways. In the first step of our analysis, the redshift-volume test assumes a minimum model of passive galaxy evolution. For the cosmological constant Λ = 0 and for the evolutionary models of Rocca-Volmerange & Guiderdoni, the total sample yields the deceleration parameter q0 = 0.10 with the 95% confidence limit, q0 < 0.75. In a second step, we evaluate—within the errors of the first step—whether our q0-value is over- or underestimated, using those observed evolutionary trends that appear to be nearly q0 independent. The trends indicate that our result q0 = 0.10 can be regarded as an upper limit. Effects of incompleteness, errors in the (K + E)-corrections due to extreme galaxy mixtures, as well as different models of population synthesis, large-scale clustering, galactic reddening, and gravitational lensing, are discussed. We conclude that the combination of MRSP redshift data, observed evolutionary trends in the galaxy luminosity functions, and passive galaxy aging suggests an open universe.
Conventionally, CMD analyses of nearby star clusters are based on observations in 2 passbands. They are plagued by considerable degeneracies between age, metallicity, distance (and extinction) that can largely be resolved by including additional passbands with -band significantly reduces the uncertainties in the cluster parameters. The age and metallicity distributions of star cluster systems yield valuable information about the formation history of their parent galaxies (Fritze – v. Alvensleben 2004). Here, we present our GALEV evolutionary synthesis models for star clusters of various metallicities (Anders & Fritze - v. Alvensleben 2003), recently extended to include the time evolution of CMDs, the dedicated SED Analysis Tool AnalySED we developed, show results on the basis of HST data, and first results from our SALT PVP project on young star clusters in starburst and interacting galaxies.
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