J/MNRAS/502/601 The VVV near-IR galaxy catalogue (Baravalle+, 2021)
The VVV near-IR galaxy catalogue beyond the Galactic disc.
Baravalle L.D., Alonso M.V., Minniti D., Nilo Castellon J.L., Soto M.,
Valotto C., Villalon C., Grana D., Amores E.B., Milla Castro F.
<Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 502, 601-620 (2021)>
=2021MNRAS.502..601B 2021MNRAS.502..601B (SIMBAD/NED BibCode)
ADC_Keywords: Galaxies, IR ; Galaxies, radius ; Positional data ;
Radial velocities
Keywords: catalogues - surveys - galaxies: photometry - infrared: galaxies
Abstract:
Knowledge about the large-scale distribution of galaxies is far from
complete in the Zone of Avoidance (ZoA), which is mostly due to high
interstellar extinction and to source confusion at lower Galactic
latitudes. Past near-infrared (NIR) surveys, such as the Two Micron
All Sky Survey (2MASS), have shown the power of probing large-scale
structure at these latitudes. Our aim is to map the galaxy
distribution across the Southern Galactic plane using the VISTA
Variables in the Via Lactea Survey (VVV), which reach 2-4mag deeper
than 2MASS. We used SEXTRACTOR+PSFEX to identify extended objects and
to measure their sizes, the light concentration index, magnitudes, and
colours. Morphological and colour constraints and visual inspection
were used to confirm galaxies. We present the resulting VVV NIR Galaxy
Catalogue (VVV NIRGC) of 5563 visually confirmed galaxies, of which
only 45 were previously known. This is the largest catalogue of
galaxies towards the Galactic plane, with 99 per cent of these
galaxies being new discoveries. We found that the galaxy density
distribution closely resembled the distribution of low interstellar
extinction of the existing NIR maps. We also present a description of
the 185 2MASS extended sources observed in the region, of which 16 per
cent of these objects had no previous description, which we have now
classified. We conclude that interstellar extinction and stellar
density are the main limitations for the detection of background
galaxies in the ZoA. The VVV NIRGC is a new data set providing
information for extragalactic studies in the Galactic plane.
Description:
The NIR observations allow the study of regions at the lower Galactic
latitudes, where interstellar extinction is severe. This wavelength
regime is less affected by foreground extinction than the optical one.
It is also sensitive to early-type galaxies, groups, and galaxy
clusters, which should be less confused with Galactic objects such as
young stellar objects (YSO) and cool cirrus sources (Schroder et al.
2007A&A...466..481S 2007A&A...466..481S, Cat. J/A+A/466/481).
The VVV survey is an NIR variability public survey of the Galactic
bulge (10°<l<350° and -10°<b<+5°) and an adjacent
section of the mid-plane (295°<l<350° and -2°<b<+2°)
(Minniti et al. 2010NewA...15..433M 2010NewA...15..433M). The survey was carried out using
the VISTA 4-m telescope at ESO, which is equipped with a wide-field
NIR camera (VIRCAM, Dalton et al. 2006SPIE.6269E..0XD) with a pixel
scale of 0.34arcsec/pixel.
The VVV tiles are produced by six single pointing observations with a
total field of view of 1.64deg2 in the Z (0.87µm), Y (1.02µm),
J (1.25µm), H (1.64µm), and Ks (2.14µm) passbands (Saito et
al. 2010Msngr.141...24S 2010Msngr.141...24S).
We created the VVV NIRGC, which contains 5563 galaxies across an area
of 220deg2 within 295°<l<350° and -2.25°<b<+2.25°,
using the procedure detailed in the previous section. In this region,
we have only a total of 45 galaxies in common with other NIR surveys,
such as the 2MASX (Schroder et al. 2007A&A...466..481S 2007A&A...466..481S, Cat.
J/A+A/466/481; Williams et al. 2014MNRAS.443...41W 2014MNRAS.443...41W, Cat.
J/MNRAS/443/41; Said et al. 2016MNRAS.462.3386S 2016MNRAS.462.3386S, Cat.
J/MNRAS/462/3386) catalogues. Consequently, in VVV NIRGC, about 99 per
cent of the galaxies are new discoveries.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
vvvnirgc.dat 154 5563 VVV near-IR galaxy catalogue
tablea1.dat 38 152 VVV tiles in the Galactic disc
tableb1.dat 71 21 2MASX extragalactic sources
tableb2.dat 106 164 2MASX Galactic sources
refs.dat 74 53 References for Table B2
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See also:
J/A+A/466/481 : Near-infrared survey around PKS 1343-601 (Schroeder+, 2007)
J/MNRAS/443/41 : Deep NIR photometry of HI galaxies in ZoA (Williams+, 2014)
J/MNRAS/462/3386 : Deep NIR catalogue of HIZOA galaxies (Said+, 2016)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: vvvnirgc.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 23 A23 --- Name Source name (VVV-JHHMMSS.ss+DDMMSS.s)
25- 26 I2 h RAh Right ascension (J2000)
28- 29 I2 min RAm Right ascension (J2000)
31- 35 F5.2 s RAs Right ascension (J2000)
37 A1 --- DE- Declination sign (J2000)
38- 39 I2 deg DEd Declination (J2000)
41- 42 I2 arcmin DEm Declination (J2000)
44- 47 F4.1 arcsec DEs Declination (J2000)
49- 66 F18.14 deg GLON Galactic longitude
68- 90 F23.20 deg GLAT Galactic latitude
92- 95 F4.2 mag AKs Interstellar extinction in the Ks-band
97-101 F5.2 mag Jmag Total extinction corrected J-band magnitude
103-107 F5.2 mag Hmag Total extinction corrected H-band magnitude
109-113 F5.2 mag Ksmag Total extinction corrected Ks-band magnitude
115-119 F5.2 mag JmagAp Extinction corrected J-band aperture
magnitude within a fixed aperture of 2arcsec
diameter
121-125 F5.2 mag HmagAp Extinction corrected H-band aperture
magnitude within a fixed aperture of 2arcsec
diameter
127-131 F5.2 mag KsmagAp Extinction corrected Ks-band aperture
magnitude within a fixed aperture of 2arcsec
diameter
133-136 F4.2 arcsec Rhl Half-light radius
138-141 F4.2 --- C Concentration index
143-146 F4.2 --- ellip Ellipticity
148-152 F5.2 --- n Spheroid Sersic index
154 A1 --- Flag [0/1] WISE flag (1)
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Note (1): Flag as follows:
0 = The galaxy doesn't have a WISE counterpart
1 = The galaxy has a WISE counterpart
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: tablea1.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 4 A4 --- ID Tile identifier
6- 13 F8.4 deg GLON Galactic longitude
15- 21 F7.4 deg GLAT Galactic latitude
23- 28 F6.3 mag AV Extinction in the V-band
30- 34 F5.3 mag AKs Extinction in the Ks-band
36- 38 I3 --- Ngal Number of galaxies
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: tableb1.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 17 A17 --- Name Source 2MASX designation (JHHMMSSss+DDMMSSs)
19- 26 F8.4 deg GLON Galactic longitude
28- 34 F7.4 deg GLAT Galactic latitude
36- 38 A3 --- 2MASXType 2MASX classification type (1)
40- 42 A3 --- WISEType WISE classification type (1)
44- 47 I4 km/s RV ? Radial velocity
49- 51 I3 km/s e_RV ? Error on RV
53- 71 A19 --- Ref References taken from NED (2)
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Note (1): Classification type as follows:
G = Galaxy
IrS = Infrared source
Note (2): References as follows:
1 = Kourkchi & Tully (2017ApJ...843...16K 2017ApJ...843...16K, Cat. J/ApJ/843/16)
2 = Said et al. (2016MNRAS.462.3386S 2016MNRAS.462.3386S, Cat. J/MNRAS/462/3386)
3 = Courtois & Tully (2015MNRAS.447.1531C 2015MNRAS.447.1531C, Cat. J/MNRAS/447/1531)
4 = Williams et al. (2014MNRAS.443...41W 2014MNRAS.443...41W, Cat. J/MNRAS/443/41)
5 = Courtois et al. (2009AJ....138.1938C 2009AJ....138.1938C, Cat. J/AJ/138/1938)
6 = Paturel et al. (2003A&A...412...57P 2003A&A...412...57P)
7 = Vauglin et al. (2002A&A...387....1V 2002A&A...387....1V, Cat. J/A+A/387/1)
8 = Karachentseva et al. (2010AstBu..65....1K 2010AstBu..65....1K, Cat. VII/257)
9 = Schroder et al. (2007A&A...466..481S 2007A&A...466..481S, Cat. J/A+A/466/481)
10 = Rousseau et al. (2000A&A...363...62R 2000A&A...363...62R, Cat. J/A+A/363/62)
11 = Jarrett (2004PASA...21..396J 2004PASA...21..396J)
12 = Nagayama et al. (2004MNRAS.354..980N 2004MNRAS.354..980N, Cat. J/MNRAS/354/980)
13 = Mitronova et al. (2004BSAO...57....5M 2004BSAO...57....5M, Cat. J/other/BSAO/57.5)
14 = Schroder et al. (2019MNRAS.482.5167S 2019MNRAS.482.5167S, Cat. J/MNRAS/482/5167)
15 = West & Tarenghi (1989A&A...223...61W 1989A&A...223...61W)
16 = Staveley-Smith et al. (2016AJ....151...52S 2016AJ....151...52S, Cat. J/AJ/151/52)
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: tableb2.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 17 A17 --- Name Source 2MASX designation (JHHMMSSss+DDMMSSs)
19- 26 F8.4 deg GLON Galactic longitude
28- 34 F7.4 deg GLAT Galactic latitude
36- 68 A33 --- OName Name of the closest source in the Simbad
database
70- 71 I2 --- Ref ? Reference, in refs.dat file
73- 106 A34 --- Desc Object description
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: refs.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 2 I2 --- Ref [1/53] Reference number
4- 22 A19 --- BibCode BibCode
24- 52 A29 --- Aut Author's name
54- 74 A21 --- Com Comments
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History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Ana Fiallos [CDS] 25-Oct-2023