Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
1995-06-20
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
4 pages, postscript, gzip-compressed, uuencoded, includes 2 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics, Let
Scientific paper
To investigate the distribution of dust in Sb and Sc galaxies we have analyzed near-infrared and optical surface photometry for an unbiased sample of 37 galaxies. Since light in the $K$-band is very little affected by extinction by dust, the $B-K$ colour is a good indicator of the amount of extinction, and using the colour-inclination relation we can statistically determine the extinction for an average Sb/Sc galaxy. We find in general a considerable amount of extinction in spiral galaxies in the central regions, all the way out to their effective radii. In the outer parts, at D$_{K,21}$, or at 3 times the typical exponential scale lengths of the stellar distribution , we find a maximum optical depth of 0.5 in $B$ for a face-on galaxy. If we impose the condition that the dust is distributed in the same way as the stars, this upper limit would go down to 0.1.
Beckman John E.
Freudling Wolfman
Knapen Johan H.
Moorwood Alan F. M.
Peletier Reynier F.
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