1997/01/07 by J. Hjorth, Jens Hjorth, N. R. Tanvir +1 · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/304124
published as Astrophys.J. 482 (1997) 68-74 · 19 pages, LaTeX, includes aaspp4.sty and 3 eps figures. To appear in ApJ. Also available at http://www.nordita.dk/~jens/preprints.html
arxiv created 1997/01/07 · openalex publication_date 1997/06/10 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We derive new effective radii and total magnitudes for 5 E and S0 galaxies in the Leo-I group from wide-field CCD images. These are used in conjunction with recent literature velocity data to construct the fundamental plane (FP) of the Leo-I group. The rms scatter that we find is only 6 % in distance. The zero point of this relation provides a calibration of the FP as a distance indicator and directly determines the angular diameter distance ratio between the Leo-I group and more distant clusters. In the language of Jerjen and Tammann (1993) we determine a cosmic velocity of the Leo-I group of 757+-68 km/s relative to the Coma cluster, or 796+-57 km/s relative to a frame of 9 clusters. Combining this velocity with the Cepheid distance to M96, a member of Leo-I, we find the Hubble constant to be H0=67+-8 km/s/Mpc or H0=70+-7 km/s/Mpc for each case. The distance we obtain for the Coma cluster itself (108+-12 Mpc) is in good agreement with a number of other recent estimates.