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UKIRT and HST imaging of Abell 68


UNITED KINGDOM INFRARED TELESCOPE

Newsletter

Issue 10, Spring 2002


UKIRT and HST imaging of Abell 68

** Figure **

A true colour RK view of the central square arcminute of Abell 68 (z=0.26), exploiting the superlative spatial resolution of Smith et al.'s (2002, MNRAS, 330, 1) UKIRT (FWHM~0.4") and HST imaging data. Smith et al.'s survey for gravitationally lensed EROs revealed this spectacular gravitational lens system in which the foreground galaxy cluster (A 68) produces three images of a single background galaxy (ERO J003707 — marked A,B,C). More recently, Smith et al. (2002b, in prep.) have combined near-infrared spectroscopic observations with CGS4/UKIRT and NIRSPEC/Keck-II to measure the redshift of this ERO: z=1.60. The intriguing aspect of this galaxy is that, whilst its extremely red colour (R-K=5.4) is dominated by a central bulge of old stars, it also possesses a star forming disk. This is at odds with the current view that EROs are either elliptical galaxies or dust-reddened emission line galaxies at z~1-2. This result has important implications for future attempts to use EROs to constrain the formation epoch of massive elliptical galaxies.

Image and text courtesy of Graham Smith & Ian Smail, Univ. of Durham, UK.


UNITED KINGDOM INFRARED TELESCOPE

Newsletter

Issue 10, Spring 2002


Contact: Chris Davis. Updated: Tue Jul 6 16:16:55 HST 2004

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