Judith A. Irwin

Office: Rm 308E Stirling Hall
TEL: (613) 533-2717/2707
FAX: (613) 533-6463
Email: IRWIN@ASTRO.QUEENSU.CA

REDUCTION OF HI ARCHIVAL VLA DATA FOR NGC 2903

All VLA Data sets have been downloaded and reduced as follows:


DATA SET 1 (AO125), Sept 1996, 2.03 hours on source, HI spectral line in D Array:

The following images were made from AO125. The images shown below are made with natural weighting. The beam size is 58" by 51" at PA=-55 degrees.

Continuum contours (made from continuum-only channels) over Optical DSS

continuum over dss

**NEW** Click here for a postscript image showing all continuum sources (labelled) in the VLA primary beam. Click here for positions and flux densities of these sources (primary beam corrected). The fits file is here

LEFT: MOM0 map, RIGHT: MOM1 map. Notice the scale. This galaxy is almost as large as the full moon. The velocity field is not to the same scale as the integrated intensity map. Dark blue is about 380 km/s and red is about 720 km/s.

HI moment 0 map HI moment 1 map

LEFT: Optical DSS, RIGHT: HI MOM0 to the same scale. Notice the double HI ring, tilted to the direction of the background disk HI.

DSS image, B&W HI moment 0 map, B&W


DATA SET 2 (AW536), April 2000, 2.68 hours on source, HI spectral line in C array:

The following images were made from AW536. The images shown below are made with natural weighting. The beam size is 17.3" by 16.3" at PA=-15 degrees.

Continuum contours (made from continuum-only channels)

C array continuum

LEFT: HI MOM0 Map. RIGHT: HI MOM1 Map.

C array MOM0 map C array MOM1 map


DATA SET 3 (AB292), Sept 1984, 4.15 hours on source, D array: This data set was reduced but the noise (and possibly other errors) was considerably higher (as expected, given the date of observations) than the previous data sets. Combining these data with the previous D array data resulted in a higher, rather than lower noise level, so the data were not used.


DATA SET 4 (AJ125), Aug 1985, 7.40 hours on source, C array: This data set was reduced but the noise (and possibly other errors) was considerably higher (as expected, given the date of observations) than the previous data sets. Combining these data with the previous C array data resulted in a higher, rather than lower noise level, so the data were not used.


DATA SET 5 (AQ11), Sept 1996, 0.45 hours on source, D array & April 1996, 1.30 hours on source, C array: After some reductions were done, I realized that these two data sets were incorrectly set up with the central velocity of the galaxy set to the end of the observing band. Thus, only half of the galaxy is represented in the data set. The data had to be ignored.


OTHER: There were a few other spectral line data sets in the direction of NGC2903, but at the wrong frequency.


COMBINATION OF DATA SET 1 (AO125, D) AND DATA SET 2 (AW536, C): The central positions were slightly offset from each other so UVFIX was used to align them. The velocities were adjusted to the same velocity definition (one was lsr, the other heliocentric). Also the D array data used no on-line Hanning smoothing whereas the C array data did, so the D array data were Hanning smoothed so that the channel width=resolution was virtually identical. The resulting channels were then found to be shifted by 1.98 km/s with respect to each other. These data (with a channel width of about 10 km/s) were then combined as is. So the resulting velocity resolution is really a bit worse than 10 km/s. A self-cal of all channels using the continuum map improved the results. A number of cubes were then made from the combined-array data. I show moment maps of different weightings below. Cubes can be obtained from http://www.astro.queensu.ca/~irwin/pub/ngc2903 for anyone who wishes to look at the data in more detail.


Combined data, Natural Weighting (cube file can be obtained from http://www.astro.queensu.ca/~irwin/pub/ngc2903/BOTH_NACUBE.FITS) MOM0, beam=31.04 X 29.76 arcsec

Combined data, UV Cutoff at 5 klambda, i.e. at uppermost D Array UV spacing (cube file is at http://www.astro.queensu.ca/~irwin/pub/ngc2903/BOTH_CUT.FITS) MOM0, beam= 47.62 X 45.06 arcsec

Combined data, UV Taper at 2.5 klambda (cube file is at http://www.astro.queensu.ca/~irwin/pub/ngc2903/BOTH_2.5TAP.FITS) MOM0, beam= 73.88 X 72.33 arcsec

Combined data, UV Taper at 2.5 klambda MOM1, beam= 73.88 X 72.33 arcsec

Combined data, UV Taper at 2.5 klambda MOM0 (same as above but higher ICUT and emphasizing lower intensity features) & MOM0 (ditto but even higher ICUT)


Last revised March 25, 2004