NRAO: National Radio Astronomy Observatory

About this Image

VLA atomic hydrogen observations of the NGC 5018 group. The upper panel is the optical image from the Digital Sky Survey, while the lower panel shows the same optical image to fainter light levels, with contours indicating the distribution of the cold atomic gas. NGC 5018 is classified as a normal E3 elliptical galaxy, but at fainter light levels the galaxy exhibits a peculiar morphology, with many shells, ripples and loops. The VLA spectral line observations shows gas associated with a number of spiral galaxies in the group, and a few clouds which are not apparently associated with any optically identified system. Most interestingly, there is an extended gas "bridge" of material connecting two spirals on either side of NGC 5018, and the gaseous bridge appears to bend to avoid the elliptical.

Investigator(s):  P. Guhathakurta, J. van Gorkom, G. Knapp & D.-W Kim. Composite image by J. Hibbard

Alternate Resolutions

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This image is available in the following downloadable versions:

• 414 x 834 B&W GIF

If you would like to obtain a higher resolution version of this image, please contact Pat Smiley.

For More Information

• Read the Journal article
• Visit related website http://www.nrao.edu/astrores/HIrogues/webGallery/RoguesGallery14.html#roguesn5018
• Up one level for more info on Early-type galaxies
• For unfamiliar terms, visit the NRAO Radio Astronomy Glossary

Technical Data

Telescope	VLA
Date of Observation	1987-05-13
Type of Observation	Spectral Line Observations
Wavelength	21 cm
Frequency	1420.4 MHz
Species	HI
Center of Image	RA: 13:13:5.50, Dec: -19:28:28.00 (J2000)
Field of View	0.4667 x 0.4333 degrees
Technical Caption	Radio data are VLA D-array observations at 60" resolution. HI contours start at a level of 3x1019 atoms cm-2, with successive contours a factor of two higher. Earlier versions of this data was published in Kim et al. 1988.



Astronomical database entries for NGC5018
• Query NED for images of NGC5018
• Query SIMBAD for more NGC5018 data

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