Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2010-10-04
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
A&A accepted, 18 pages, 13 figures
Scientific paper
Context: The combination of optical and near-infrared (NIR) colours has the potential to break the age/metallicity degeneracy and offers a better metallicity sensitivity than optical colours alone. Previous studies of extragalactic globular clusters (GCs) with this colour combination, however, have suffered from small samples or have been restricted to a few galaxies. Aims: We compile a homogeneous and representative sample of GC systems with multi-band photometry to be used in subsequent papers where ages and metallicity distributions will be studied. Methods: We acquired deep K-band images of 14 bright nearby early-type galaxies. The images were obtained with the LIRIS near-infrared spectrograph and imager at the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) and combined with optical ACS g and z images from the Hubble Space Telescope public archive. Results: For the first time GC photometry of 14 galaxies are observed and reduced homogeneously in this wavelength regime. We achieved a limiting magnitude of K~20-21. For the majority of the galaxies we detect about 70 GCs each. NGC4486 and NGC4649, the cluster-richest galaxies in the sample contain 301 and 167 GCs, respectively. We present tables containing coordinates, photometry and sizes of the GCs available.
Brodie Jean P.
Chies-Santos Ana L.
Kuntschner Harald
Larsen Soeren S.
Strader Jay
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