Deeply imaging interacting galaxies to detect tidal features

Presenter(s): John Drummond

Affiliation(s): Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand (vice president). Possum Observatory.

Session details: Sunday, 2016-03-27 03:30:00, LT104

Abstract

Luminous features surrounding peculiar galaxies have been imaged since the early 1900s. Their nature has become clearer as our understanding of galaxy evolution developed in the light of merger models from the Toomre brothers’ work in the 1970s. I present findings after deeply imaging southern galaxies in an attempt to detect tidal streams in galactic halos resulting from gravitational interactions and passages between galaxies of similar or disproportional mass ratios. These images of many hours’ exposure time were subjected to severe processing and then inverted to reveal as much tidal disruption as possible.

Biography

John Drummond is the vice president of the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand and owner/operator of Possum Observatory – near Gisborne, NZ. He has a Master of Science (Astronomy) degree from Swinburne University (Melbourne) and is a school teacher in NZ. Interests include astronomy and surfing. John is also a contributing editor of Australian Sky & Telescope magazine.