2005/08/18 by N. Christopher, N. M Christopher, Ian Smail · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Adaptive optics #Adaptive optics and wavefront sensing #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Infrared telescope #Luminous infrared galaxy #Observatory #Photometry (optics) #Physics #Redshift #Stars #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Telescope #Very Large Telescope #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.09642.x
published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 365(2), 439-446 (Oxford University Press) · Submitted to MNRAS, 8 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2005/08/18 · openalex publication_date 2005/11/30 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present a multicolour catalogue of faint galaxies situated close to bright stars, V≲ 15, with the aim of identifying high-redshift galaxies suitable for study with adaptive optics-equipped near-infrared imagers and spectrographs. The catalogue is constructed from archival calibration observations of the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) Faint Standard stars with the UKIRT Fast Track Imager (UFTI) camera on UKIRT. We have analysed the deepest 16 fields from the archive to provide a catalogue of galaxies brighter than K∼ 20.3 lying between 3 and 25 arcsec of the guide stars. We identify 111 objects in a total survey area of 8.7 arcmin2. Of these, 87 are classified as galaxies based on their light profiles in our ∼0.5 arcsec median seeing K-band images. 12 of the galaxies have (J−K) ≥ 2.0 consistent with them lying at high redshifts, z≳ 2. These 12 very red galaxies have K-band magnitudes of K = 18.1–20.1 and separations from the guide stars of 4–20 arcsec and hence are very well suited to adaptive optics studies to investigate their morphologies and spectral properties on sub-kpc scales. We provide coordinates and JHK photometry for all catalogued objects.