1998/08/25 by Tommaso Treu, T. Treu, M. Stiavelli +41
Physics and Astronomy · #Adaptive optics and wavefront sensing #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/9808282
Submitted to A&A Letters; 5 pages including 3 figures
arxiv created 1998/08/25 · openalex publication_date 1998/08/25 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We report the serendipitous discovery of an extremely red object in the\nHubble Deep Field South (HDFS) Test NICMOS (Near Infrared Camera and Multi\nObject Spectrograph) field of view. The object is resolved in the NICMOS image\nand has a light profile very well described by an r1/4 law with effective\nradius re=0."20+-0."05 and HAB=21.7+-0.1 magnitudes. In contrast, the\ngalaxy is undetected in the R and I band ground based images taken at the CTIO\n4 m Blanco Telescope, giving a lower limit to the color of (R-H)AB>3.9 and\n(I-H)AB>3.5 at the 95% confidence level. The colors of a range of synthetic\ngalactic spectra are computed, showing that the object is likely to be an\n``old'' elliptical galaxy at redshift z>~1.7. Alternatively the colors can be\nreproduced by an ``old'' elliptical galaxy at somewhat lower redshift (z>~1)\nwith significant amount of dust, or by a younger galaxy at higher redshift.\nThis object represents a very interesting target for future VLT observations.\n