Apparent Magnitudes of Galaxies

For abbreviations of catalogues, see General Catalogs of Non-Stellar Objects

For bright galaxies, probably the most widely used system of magnitudes is the B(O) system [81]. B(O) is the integrated magnitude derived from photoelectric or modern photographic magnitudes in the Johnson B system (see 4.2.5.12) or magnitudes transformed to this system. B(O) magnitudes are given for 873 objects in RC1 (= [7] in Secondary Galaxy Catalogs). To incorporate the rich data base of galaxy magnitudes given by Shapley and Ames [247], systematic errors in these so-called Harvard magnitudes, m_H have been investigated in [75, 76, 140]. These magnitudes have been corrected for surface-brightness and luminosity-gradient dependent errors and transformed to the B(O) system as corrected Harvard magnitudes m_c in RC2 (= [8] in Secondary Galaxy Catalogs). A comprehensive source list of B magnitudes is given in RC1 (Table 10) and RC2 (Tables 10 and 11), but some of the more important individual sources of magnitudes of galaxies in the UBV system are [22, 23, 78, 79, 80, 81, 87, 234].

For fainter galaxies, the most extensive photometry in the north is that contained in the CGCG (= [52] in Primary Galaxy Catalogs) and derived from ``schraffierkassette" photographic photometry down to an estimated completeness limit of m = 15.5 mag. The MCG (= [49] in Primary Galaxy Catalogs) also contains magnitude estimates down to m_pg < 15.0 mag. Remarks on the MCG versus CGCG magnitude scales are found in [178]. Magnitude errors in the CGCG have been investigated in [142, 237] and more extensively by Huchra [143], who shows that the CGCG magnitudes differ by 0.12 mag. per mag with respect to B(O) magnitudes and have a scatter of ~ 0.35 mag; but note the anomaly in Vol. I [117], and see also [9, 11, 35, 180]. In the southern hemisphere the ESO-LV (= [28] in Secondary Galaxy Catalogs) contains photographic B,R photometry for 16,000 galaxies, based on UBVRI photoelectric data from [181, 182, 208].

Aperture photometry for southern E and S0 galaxies; VRI aperture photometry of 115 galaxies [216]; UBVRI aperture photometry for 169 early-type galaxies [217]; UBVRI photometry for 14 central, dominant galaxies in clusters [190]; UBV photometry for 360 objects [272]; UBV aperture photometry for 169 galaxies [233]. 109 galaxies in Virgo designed to serve as photographic B-band photometric standards [24]; UBV photometry of 196 non-Seyfert Markarian galaxies [144]; photographic B-band surface brightness measurements for 1,550 galaxies in Fornax [214]; 693 UBVRI aperture photometry measurements for 91 active galaxies [125]. UBVRIJHK photometry for a complete sample of interacting galaxies [153]; UBV photometry of 36 Markarian and S0 galaxies [213]; UBV photoelectric photometry of 19 nests of galaxies [6].

Photographic and CCD surface photometry of 33 early-type galaxies in Virgo is given in [43]. Digital surface photometry of 20 Virgo galaxies [273]. Other recent compilations of original data include [41, 71, 90, 152, 173, 176, 183, 193, 194, 195]; UBV multi-aperture photometry of 46 Virgo E/S0 galaxies. UBVR surface photometry of 16 LSB galaxies [231]. Surface photometry of NGC 7793, NGC 247 and NGC 300 [47]. V surface photometry for 261 brightest cluster members in 63 clusters [243]. B surface photometry for 69 dwarf ellipticals in Virgo [150]. V photographic surface photometry of 13 bright galaxies in the Fornax cluster [136]; BR CCD photometry of low surface brightness galaxies in Fornax [65]; BVI CCD photometry of Fornax LSB galaxies [33]. UBVR aperture photometry of 107 galaxies and JHK photometry of 80 field, 35 Virgo and 22 Coma galaxies [212]. JHK aperture photometry [1, 2, 32, 112, 221]; UBV photoelectric aperture photometry for 61 galaxies [256]. UBV photometric catalogue of double galaxies [73]; JK surface photometry for 12 bright elliptical galaxies [209]. B-band surface photometry of 18 S0 and E galaxies [40]. Distribution of B luminosity in 26 spiral galaxies [30]. Detailed surface photometry of 6 galaxies [245]. Surface photometry for 131 southern elliptical galaxies [71]. Types, magnitudes and diameters for 220 galaxies in the Hercules supercluster [39].

Extensive compilations of bibliographic references to optical surface photometry of galaxies (complete to January 1985) are given in [68, 210]. BV CCD observations of galaxies in the Coma and Hercules supercluster [114]. ubVr photoelectric photometry for 405 E/S0 galaxies [238]; Gunn r-band CCD photometry of 105 field galaxies [170] with bulge/disk deconvolution [171]; photometric catalog of 463 galaxies in 100 compact groups [132]; optical colors of early-type galaxies in compact groups [281]; multiwavelength isophotal data for southern ellipticals [254]; VRI CCD photometry of 9 early-type galaxies in Virgo [19]; UBVRI photometry for 80 compact galaxies [198]; optical B(CCD) and infrared (JHK) follow-up studies on 23 IRAS mini-survey galaxies [199, 200].

Radio continuum (20cm) maps: early-type and late-type galaxies [115a]; all spirals with B_T < 12 mag [57]; all spirals with H-band observations [58]; the IRAS Bright Galaxy Sample [59].

Sources of infrared surface photometry (e.g., [4, 261]) can be found in ``A Catalogue of Visual and Infrared Photometry of Galaxies from 0.5 µm to 10 µm (1961-1985)'' [74] or gleaned from The Catalog of Infrared Observations [115]. IRAS fluxes of galaxies can be obtained in the CGQ and in [46, 252, 279] for the IRAS bright-galaxy sample, and in [253] for IRAS mini-survey galaxies; for 196 Virgo galaxies [131]. A catalogue of radio, optical and infrared observations of spiral galaxies in clusters [31]; optical CCD images and spectroscopy for a sample of 62 extreme IRAS galaxies [271]; near-infrared imaging survey of interacting galaxie [240]; JHK mapping of NGC 2841 [218] and NGC 2403 [49].

Integrated H photometry is available from [113, 168, 169] H / NII survey of a complete sample of 93 spiral galaxies [166]; an optical and radio survey of 88 galaxies with B_T < 12.0 mag and > +40° [128]; spectrophotometric survey of 104 Seyfert galaxies [111].

While UV surface photometry [177] is still very scarce, integrated UV fluxes are available from OAO-2 [53, 54], the ANS satellite [56, 69, 151, 259, 276, 277], and from the ASTRON mission [192]; as well as from sounding rockets [26, 27, 48, 134, 250, 251, 255] and balloons [72, 93, 197]. Far UV photographs of M51, M81, M82, M100, M101, M106 [25]; 2000-Angstrom data for 149 spiral and irregular galaxies [92]; IUE spectra for 5 isolated galaxies [38].

X-ray fluxes of galaxies can be found in [42, 94, 98, 100, 107, 187] while an x-ray catalogue and atlas for 493 galaxies has been published by [99]; x-ray measurements for 334 active galaxies and nuclei [70].

Asymptotic/Total Magnitudes, B(total)

In order to transform aperture-photometry of galaxies out to ``infinite" radius (or zero surface brightness) magnitude-aperture curves for various galaxy types are given in RC2 (= [8] in Secondary Galaxy Catalogs). These curves were derived from published standard total magnitudes [3, 8, 20, 21, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 110] and applied to the data in RC2. A General Catalogue of Photoelectric Magnitudes and Colors in the UBV System of 3,578 Galaxies Brighter than 16th mag has been compiled by Longo, G. and de Vaucouleurs, A.: [189] complete to 1982.