515 research outputs found
Interstellar extinction and the distribution of stellar populations in the direction of the ultra-deep Chandra Galactic field
We studied the stellar population in the central 6.6x6.6arcmin,region of the
ultra-deep (1Msec) Chandra Galactic field - the "Chandra bulge field" (CBF)
approximately 1.5 degrees away from the Galactic Center - using the Hubble
Space Telescope ACS/WFC blue (F435W) and red (F625W) images. We mainly focus on
the behavior of red clump giants - a distinct stellar population, which is
known to have an essentially constant intrinsic luminosity and color. By
studying the variation in the position of the red clump giants on a spatially
resolved color-magnitude diagram, we confirm the anomalous total-to-selective
extinction ratio, as reported in previous work for other Galactic bulge fields.
We show that the interstellar extinction in this area is = 4 on
average, but varies significantly between ~3-5 on angular scales as small as 1
arcminute. Using the distribution of red clump giants in an
extinction-corrected color-magnitude diagram, we constrain the shape of a
stellar-mass distribution model in the direction of this ultra-deep Chandra
field, which will be used in a future analysis of the population of X-ray
sources. We also show that the adopted model for the stellar density
distribution predicts an infrared surface brightness in the direction of the
"Chandra bulge field" in good agreement (i.e. within ~15%) with the actual
measurements derived from the Spitzer/IRAC observations.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in A&
Observations of GRB 060526 Optical Afterglow with Russian-Turkish 1.5-m Telescope
We present the results of the photometric multicolor observations of GRB
060526 optical afterglow obtained with Russian-Turkish 1.5-m Telescope (RTT150,
Mt. Bakirlitepe, Turkey). The detailed measurements of afterglow light curve,
starting from about 5 hours after the GRB and during 5 consecutive nights were
done. In addition, upper limits on the fast variability of the afterglow during
the first night of observations were obtained and the history of afterglow
color variations was measured in detail. In the time interval from 6 to 16
hours after the burst, there is a gradual flux decay, which can be described
approximately as a power law with an index of -1.14+-0.02. After that the
variability on the time scale \delta t < t is observed and the afterglow
started to decay faster. The color of the afterglow, V-R=~0.5, is approximately
the same during all our observations. The variability is detected on time
scales up to \delta t/t =~ 0.0055 at \Delta F_\nu/F_\nu =~ 0.3, which violates
some constraints on the variability of the observed emission from
ultrarelativistic jet obtained by Ioka et al. (2005). We suggest to explain
this variability by the fact that the motion of the emitting shell is no longer
ultrarelativistic at this time.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, Astronomy Letters, 2007, 33, 797, The on-line
data tables and the original text in Russian can be found at
http://hea.iki.rssi.ru/grb/060526/indexeng.htm
Optical Identifications of Five INTEGRAL Hard X-ray Sources in the Galactic Plane Region
The results of optical identifications of five hard X-ray sources in the
Galactic plane region from the INTEGRAL all-sky survey are presented. The X-ray
data on one source (IGRJ20216+4359) are published for the first time. The
optical observations were performed with 1.5-m RTT-150 telescope (TUBITAK
National Observatory, Antalya, Turkey) and 6-m BTA telescope (Special
Astrophysical Observatory, Nizhny Arkhyz, Russia). A blazar, three Seyfert
galaxies, and a high-mass X-ray binary are among the identified sources.Comment: 7 pages, 10 figures, Astronomy Letters, v. 34, p. 65
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