Bibcode
Fingerhut, Robin L.; McCall, Marshall L.; Vaduvescu, Ovidiu
Bibliographical reference
NOAO Proposal ID #2006A-0528
Advertised on:
2
2006
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
Essentially all galaxies within roughly 4 Mpc of the Milky Way are
confined to a thin sheet-like structure, here referred to as the ``Local
Sheet''. Our perspective from within a structure like those seen on much
larger scales provides us with unique opportunities to search for
environmental imprints on constituent galaxies. Clues about the nature
of the Sheet environment may come from the systematics of dwarf
irregular galaxies as a function of height above or below the Sheet's
midplane, where the galaxy density is highest. Of particular interest
are the baryonic masses, gas fractions, optical-NIR colours and the
relationship between the metallicity and the gas fraction. All of these
diagnostics require photometry in the near-infrared, where light is most
sensitive to the old stellar populations dominating the luminous mass.
We are therefore conducting an imaging survey of dwarf irregular
galaxies in the Sheet in K'. We are requesting 1 full night and 2 half
nights with CTIO ISPI to complete the Southern portion of our survey.