NRAO: National Radio Astronomy Observatory

About this Image

Fornax A, radio galaxy associated with the bright elliptical galaxy NGC1316. In this hue-intensity image the brightness corresponds to the intensity of the lobes while the highly polarized structure is saturated white and regions of increasing depolarization are shaded red. This is the companion image to the Fornax A total intensity image also available in this Gallery

Investigator(s):  Fomalont, Ekers, v Breugel, Ebneter

Alternate Resolutions

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This image is available in the following downloadable versions:

• 539 x 400 color JPEG
• 1050 x 779 color JPEG
• 2425 x 1800 color TIFF

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

For More Information

• Read the Journal article
• Up one level for more info on Radio_Galaxies
• For unfamiliar terms, visit the NRAO Radio Astronomy Glossary

Technical Data

Telescope	VLA
Date of Observation	1985-00-00
Type of Observation	Continuum Observations
Band	L
Wavelength	20 cm
Frequency	1.4 GHz
Center of Image	RA: 03:20:40.00, Dec: -37:23:0.00 (B1950)
Field of View	1.0000 x 0.6667 degrees
Technical Caption	The depolarization structure in the Fornax A lobes is complex and illustrates at least 4 different effects. The large scale swirling structure (most of the Eastern lobe) results from internal depolarization in the lobes. The deep channels cutting across the source (especially the north of the western lobe) reflect the beam depolarization caused when the position angle changes by 90 degrees across the beam. The elliptical depolarized region near the tip of the western lobe is due to the foreground spiral galaxy NGC1310. The ant-like feature in the middle of the western lobe is due to a foreground depolarizing screen of mysterious origen. The image was generated at the VLA in 1986 using the Image Storage Unit developed at NRAO. This hardware allowed full interactive control of the separte RGB channels. Unfortunately this image is only available from a slide produced in 1985.



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

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