Galaxies and their Masks

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxxiv

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2. Stars are Small Dark-Coloured Things That Live in Holes in the Ground

   • Pippa Skotnes

   Pages 1-22

3. Shrouds of the Night – Galaxies and René Magritte

   • David L. Block, Kenneth C. Freeman, Ivâo Puerari

   Pages 23-44

4. Twin Masks of Spiral Structure? A Local Perspective

   • Thomas Y. Steiman-Cameron

   Pages 45-58

5. The Mask of Complexity in Disk Galaxies

   • Daniel Pfenniger

   Pages 59-66

6. Cosmic Magnetic Fields – An Overview

   • Richard Wielebinski, Rainer Beck

   Pages 67-86

7. The Gaseous Halo Mask

   • Mary E. Putman, M. Ryan Joung, Jana Grcevich, Fabian Heitsch

   Pages 87-96

8. Molecular Gas Properties of Galaxies: The SMA CO(2-1) B0DEGA Legacy Project

   • Daniel Espada, S. Martin, P.-Y. Hsieh, P.T.P. Ho, S. Matsushita, Lourdes Verdes-Montenegro et al.

   Pages 97-104

9. The DiVA’s Mask: Iconifying Galaxies and Revealing HI Anomalies

   • Jayanne English, Jason Fiege, Theresa Wiegert, Baerbel Koribalski, Wolfgang Kerzendorf, Kenneth C. Freeman

   Pages 105-112

10. Enigmatic Masks of Cosmic Dust: Lessons from Nearby Galaxies Through the Eyes of the Spitzer Space Telescope

    • Robert Groess, David L. Block, Giovanni G. Fazio

    Pages 113-120

11. The Large Magellanic Cloud: A Power Spectral Analysis of Spitzer Images

    • Ivânio Puerari, David L. Block, Bruce G. Elmegreen, Frédéric Bournaud

    Pages 121-128

12. Light Cores Behind Dark Masks

    • Ruben J. Díaz, Damián Mast, Germán Gimeno, Horacio Dottori, Irapuan Rodrigues, María Paz Agüero et al.

    Pages 129-138

13. Globalization, Open Access Publishing, and the Disappearance of Print: Threat or Opportunity?

    • J.J. Blom

    Pages 139-146

14. Super Star Clusters and Supernovae in Interacting LIRGs Unmasked by NIR Adaptive Optics

    • Petri Väisänen, Zara Randriamanakoto, Erkki Kankare, Seppo Mattila, Stuart Ryder

    Pages 147-152

15. Structure, Mass, and Stability of Galactic Disks

    • Pieter van der Kruit

    Pages 153-168

16. What Can the Radial Surface Brightness Profiles of Galaxy Discs Tell Us About Their Evolution?

    • John E. Beckman, Leonel Gutiérrez, Peter Erwin, Ruyman Azzollini, Inma Martínez-Valpuesta

    Pages 169-186

17. The Complex Interplay of Dust and Star Light in Spiral Galaxy Discs

    • Maarten Baes, Dimitri Gadotti, Joris Verstappen, Ilse De Looze, Jacopo Fritz, Edgardo Vidal Pérez et al.

    Pages 187-194

18. Galaxy Morphology Revealed By SDSS: Blue Elliptical Galaxies

    • Hong Bae Ann

    Pages 195-200

19. Rings and Bars: Unmasking Secular Evolution of Galaxies

    • Johan H. Knapen

    Pages 201-220

20. Bars and Bulges Through Masks of Time

    • Isabel Pérez, Patricia Sánchez-Blázquez, A. Zurita, G. Popping, Bard K. Gibson, Pierre Ocvirk

    Pages 221-232

Various kinds of masks obscure our view of our galaxy, the Milky Way, as well as of other galaxies. Masks of interstellar dust affect our measurements within galaxies, on scales ranging from individual supernovae to the galaxies themselves. The “mass mask” (our inability to image mass rather than light) gives astronomers a very incomplete picture of the size and structure of galaxies themselves, because we cannot image the dark matter which provides most of the galactic mass. Another mass is the “dynamical mask”: as galaxies form, much dynamical information is lost in the birthing process. A new thrust in research is to retrieve such information by means of chemical tagging. About 50 astronomers flew into Namibia in April 2010, to celebrate the 70th birthday of Professor K.C. Freeman, Fellow of the Royal Society. At age 70, Freeman, a father of dark matter in galaxies, continues to be one of planet’s most highly cited astronomers. The current volume affords readers a unique perspective on galaxies by probing the thoughts of some of the greatest astronomers of our age. Contributions focus on galaxies from within our Local Group to those in our high redshift Universe. Approximately 40 in-depth review and contributed papers are contained in the volume, each written by an expert in the field. Two unusual features of the current volume include the “Star Country” of the San people of southern Africa as well as the introduction into astronomy of “The Treachery of Images” by the Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte. “Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see”, said Magritte. These words resonate the theme of the current volume “Galaxies and their Masks”, which is written at a level to be appreciated by both specialist and doctoral student alike.

• Bulge
• Galaxy
• Ken Freeman birthday
• Redshift
• Spiral galaxy
• Star
• difficulties in simulating disk galaxies
• masks of cosmic dust
• masks of dark matter
• stellar
• very faint galactic exteriors

• University of the Witwatersrand, Johanne, School of Computational and Applied Math, Wits, South Africa

  David L. Block

• Mount Stromlo Observatory, Australian National University, Weston Creek, Australia

  Kenneth C. Freeman

• Óptica y Electrónica (INAOE), Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica,, Santa Maria Tonantzintla, Mexico

  Ivânio Puerari

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