Astron. Astrophys. 332, 71-76 (1998)

Near infrared observations of the Local Arm

C. Porcel ¹, F. Garzón ², J. Jiménez-Vicente ¹ and E. Battaner <sup>1

1</sup> Departamento de Física Teórica y del Cosmos, Universidad de Granada, E-18071 Granada, Spain
² Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, E-38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain

Received 22 May 1997 / Accepted 3 November 1997

Abstract

Observations of the Local Arm have been carried out in the near-infrared with the 1.5 m "Carlos Sánchez" telescope in Tenerife. A model of the disc with adjustable parameters fitted to reproduce the DIRBE-COBE survey, has been subtracted from the observational data in order to obtain a clean map of the Local Arm, uncontaminated by other components of the disc. The arm is more than 70 pc over the plane and is wider than 200 pc. At a latitude of about the deviation of the arm from the galactic plane is so large that was only partially observed with our observational window of . The elevation over the plane vanishes and the width decreases as the Arm comes closer to the Sun.

Key words: Galaxy: structure infrared: galaxies

© European Southern Observatory (ESO) 1998

Online publication: March 10, 1998
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