Colloquium: Prof. Juan Cabanela

Department of Physics, Minnesota State University at Moorhead

Quantifying the Effects of Viewing Angle on Observed Properties of Galaxies

Friday, Apr 11, 2014 4:01pm-4:50pm

I'll report on efforts to quantify the effects of viewing angle on the observed
properties of galaxies exploiting a subsample of about a quarter million galaxies from the
Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release Six (SDSS DR6). I have used this data to obtain
(hopefully) accurate measures of effect of viewing angle on the observed luminosity and
linear diameter for galaxies as functions of galaxy morphological type and SDSS
bandpass. In addition to being able to correct observed galaxy properties to consistent
"face-on" values, this data can also be used to constrain models for the dust content of
galaxies.