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Old 18-07-2013, 08:58 PM
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madbadgalaxyman (Robert)
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Image of inter-galaxy light in The Virgo Cluster

Here is an extremely deep image of the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies showing the extremely faint inter-galaxy (intracluster) light between the member galaxies.

It was taken with the Burrell Schmidt by Chris Mihos and Paul Harding of CWRU.

Click image for larger version

Name:	M87_M86 field_(w.Burrell Schmidt)(Chris Mihos et al.)(ESO Science Release eso0919).jpg
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Here is another version of the same image, at higher contrast. It was also made by these two professional astronomers.

Click image for larger version

Name:	VirgoClust_Ultra Deep(to mu(V) = 28)_diffuse light_(J.C. Mihos & Paul H. Harding (of CWRU) ).jpg
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The depth of this image is to a V-band surface brightness of 28.5 magnitude per square arcsec.

Strange to think that an appreciable fraction of the total number of stars in the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies is located in between its galaxies.
However, as Obi Wan Kenobi said, "these are the truths that we must cling to".

The intracluster (inter-galaxy) light can contribute 10-20 Percent of the total light in certain clusters of galaxies!

See:
http://astroweb.case.edu/hos/Virgo
for more about how this image was made.
The associated scientific paper is:
Mihos et el., (2005), ApJ, 631, 41

In the scientific literature, you will find that the Intracluster Light is shortened to "ICL"
(Yet another obscure acronym!)

Last edited by madbadgalaxyman; 18-07-2013 at 09:43 PM. Reason: more info!
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