Galaxy Zoo Talk

how can you tell where it is?

  • liometopum by liometopum

    How does wtaskew and alpha aurigae know where it is?

    Posted

  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    Maybe this thread: http://talk.galaxyzoo.org/#/boards/BGZ0000005/discussions/DGZ0000lv2 can help .

    Posted

  • Capella05 by Capella05 moderator in response to liometopum's comment.

    It is tagged as a ZOAG galaxy on SIMBAD - link here to the SkyServer page and click on SIMBAD on the left hand side.

    Definitions:

    From:Cosmos

    The Zone of Avoidance (ZoA) is a region of sky that appears devoid of
    extragalactic objects at optical wavelengths. Covering roughly 20% of
    the sky and centred along the galactic equator, the ZoA is irregular
    in shape, varying in height above and below the Galactic plane with
    the widest point located towards the centre of our Galaxy in the
    constellation Sagittarius. Extragalactic objects do exist in this
    region of sky, but the extinction through the Galactic plane is very
    high, as dust and dense gas in our own Galaxy absorb the light from
    background sources. The high concentration of stars in the Galactic
    plane also make faint extragalactic objects difficult to detect within
    the ZoA.

    To penetrate the ZoA, we must observe this region at wavelengths that
    are not as affected by dust. For late-type galaxies, far infrared
    surveys (such as IRAS) have reduced the ZoA to about 10% of the sky,
    while radio observations of neutral hydrogen clouds have detected many
    galaxies that the infrared surveys missed. Near-infrared and X-ray
    surveys have played a similar role in detecting early-type galaxies,
    and we now have a much better idea of the inventory of extragalactic
    objects located behind our Galaxy.

    From Encyclopaedia Britannica

    Zone of avoidance, region characterized by an apparent absence of galaxies near the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy and caused by the obscuring effect of interstellar dust. It was so called by the American astronomer Edwin P. Hubble.

    The zone of avoidance is entirely a local Milky Way Galaxy effect.
    Surveys in the infrared and radio regions of the electromagnetic
    spectrum have shown that many external galaxies lie beyond it. The
    mass concentration known as the Great Attractor lies within it.

    .

    Zone of Avoidance Galaxies fall in a very specific region in the sky - slightly above and below the galactic plane. This region is then sub-divided and usually allocated the name of the constellation that it resides within.

    Here is a nice (although old) paper that has several images and gives the names of the various regions: Mapping the Hidden Universe: The Galaxy Distribution in the Zone of Avoidance by Renee C. Kraan-Korteweg and Sebastian Juraszek.

    You have the co-ordinates of the galaxy so it would not be that hard to find out what region it falls into 😃

    Posted

  • liometopum by liometopum

    Thank you for the answers. I'd not noticed the ZOAG comment in NED before.

    "You have the co-ordinates of the galaxy so it would not be that hard to find out what region it falls into" Well that is what I'd like help with. Just how do you take the coordinates and find where it is aiming at?

    Posted

  • Capella05 by Capella05 moderator in response to liometopum's comment.

    The co-ordinates are displayed underneath the image in Talk, on the right hand side 😃

    It is the RA (Right Ascension) and DEC (DEClination) - All you need to do is plug them in to a free to download "home planetarium" (search for it) application - and voila!

    Posted

  • JeanTate by JeanTate in response to liometopum's comment.

    Online, there's Google Sky.

    Aladin has both online and offline versions, and with it you can plot/overlay information (including 'images') from just about every astronomy catalog and survey ever published (though it can take a while to learn how to use it). SkyView is similar.

    Posted