Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Meaning Of Wise Colours – I. The Galaxy And Its Satellites, Robert Nikutta, Nicholas Hunt-Walker, Maia M. Nenkova, Željko Ivezić, Moshe Elitzur

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Through matches with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) catalogue we identify the location of various families of astronomical objects in WISE colour space. We identify reliable indicators that separate Galactic/local from extragalactic sources and concentrate here on the objects in our Galaxy and its closest satellites. We develop colour and magnitude criteria that are based only on WISE data to select asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars with circumstellar dust shells, and separate them into O-rich and C-rich classes. With these criteria we produce an all-sky map for the count ratio of the two populations. The map reveals differences between …