J/ApJ/509/309 Search for peculiar objects (Cabanac+, 1998)
A search for peculiar objects with the NASA orbital debris observatory
3 meter liquid mirror telescope.
Cabanac R.A., Borra E.F., Beauchemin M.
<Astrophys. J. 509, 309 (1998)>
=1998ApJ...509..309C 1998ApJ...509..309C
ADC_Keywords: Surveys ; Magnitudes
Keywords: stars: statistics - surveys - telescope
Abstract:
The NASA Orbital Debris Observatory (NODO) astronomical survey uses a
transit 3m liquid mirror telescope to observe a strip of sky in 20
narrowband filters. In this article, we analyze a subset of data from
the 1996 observing season. The catalog consists of 18,000 objects with
10<V<19 observed in 10 narrowband filters ranging from 500 to 950nm.
We first demonstrate the reliability of the data by fitting the
Bahcall-Soneira model of the Galaxy to the NODO magnitude counts and
color counts at various Galactic latitudes. We then perform a
hierarchical clustering analysis on the sample to extract 206 objects,
out of a total of 18,000, showing peculiar spectral energy
distributions. It is a measure of the reliability of the instrument
that we extract so few peculiar objects. Although the data and
results, per se, may not seem otherwise particularly remarkable, this
work constitutes a milestone in optical astronomy, since this is the
first article that demonstrates astronomical research with a radically
new type of mirror.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table3.dat 47 206 Peculiar objects
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See also:
III/88 : Stellar Spectrophotometric Atlas (Gunn+ 1983)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table3.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 3 I3 --- [CBB98] Sequential number
5- 13 F9.6 h RAh Right ascension (J2000.0)
15- 23 F9.6 deg DEdeg Declination (J2000.0)
25- 29 F5.2 mag m550 AB magnitude in filter 550 (essentially
the V band)
31 A1 ---- GS [OBAFGKM] Gunn & Stryker 1983 (Cat. III/88
best-fitted spectrum
33- 47 A15 --- Com Comments (1)
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Note (1): s = strong
a = absorption
e = emission
b = break
v = variable
glq = gravitational lense candidate
gc = galaxy cluster
ocrs = optical counterpart of radio source
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History: From ApJ electronic version
(End) James Marcout, Patricia Bauer [CDS] 04-Feb-1999