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Global Extinction in Spiral Galaxies

R. Brent Tully·M. J. Pierce·J. S. Huang·W. Saunders·M. A. W. Verheijen·P. L. Witchalls
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Abstract

Magnitude-limited samples of spiral galaxies drawn from the Ursa Major and Pisces clusters are used to determine their extinction properties as a function of inclination. Imaging photometry is available for 87 spirals in B,R,I and K' bands. Extinction causes systematic scatter in color-magnitude plots. A strong luminosity dependence is found. Relative edge-on to face-on extinction of up to 1.7 mag is found at B for the most luminous galaxies but is unmeasurably small for faint galaxies. At R the differential absorption with inclination reaches 1.3 mag, at I it reaches 1.0 mag, and at K' the differential absorption can in the extreme be as great as 0.3 mag. The luminosity dependence of reddening can be translated into a dependence on rotation rate which is a distance-independent observable. Hence, corrections can be made that are useful for distance measurements. The strong dependence of the corrections on luminosity act to steepen luminosity-linewidth correlations. The effect is greatest toward the blue, with the consequence that luminosity-linewidth slope dependencies are now only weakly a function of color.

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R. Brent Tully, M. J. Pierce, J. S. Huang, W. Saunders, M. A. W. Verheijen, P. L. Witchalls. 1998-02-19. Global Extinction in Spiral Galaxies. https://doi.org/10.1086/300379

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