Morphology of Distant Galaxies

Abstract

[Abstract] Binarized CCD images obtained from the original monocolor print in Tyson-Seitzer (Astrophys.J.335,552,1988) are image processed with personal image analyzing system (PIAS). Items of image processing for each galaxy are contour line length, area, lengths of major and minor axes of the approximating ellipse, the maximum diameter length, circularity, two factors concerning roundness, the ratio of contour line length to area, the ratio of major axis to minor axis, slant angle of major axis of the approximating ellipse, slant angle of maximum diameter, slant angle of major axis as rectangle enveloping the galaxy, the ratio of occupation area to the rectangle. These 14 factors are calculated for each galaxy at one threshold intensity in each binarized image. The average value of each factor in each binarized image is compared with that of different threshold intensity to get the statistical information of a distant galaxy. CCD images of distant galaxies show the tendency of alignment of maximum diameters towards east-west direction, which may be spurious due to some asymmetric device in the CCD observation or in printing process of the journal. The principal component analysis made with these 14 factors reveals that the complexity of shape is the first principal component correlating with the distance. And the average of circularity of low threshold image is larger than that of high threshold image. This means that a galaxy is the more distant, the shape of galaxy is the more complicated

    Similar works