| Issue |
A&A
Volume 397, Number 3, January III 2003
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Page(s) | L9 - L12 | |
| Section | Letters | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20021766 | |
| Published online | 21 January 2003 | |
Letter to the Editor
Faint dwarf spheroidals in the Fornax Cluster
A flat luminosity function
1
Sternwarte der Universität Bonn, Auf dem Hügel 71, 53121 Bonn, Germany
2
Departamento de Astronomía y Astrofísica, P. Universidad Católica, Casilla 104, Santiago 22, Chile
Corresponding author: M. Hilker, mhilker@astro.uni-bonn.de
Received:
4
November
2002
Accepted:
1
December
2002
We have discovered 
70 very faint dwarf galaxies in the
Fornax Cluster. These
dSphs candidates follow the same magnitude-surface brightness
relation as their counterparts in the Local Group, and even extend it to
fainter limits. The faintest dSph candidate in our sample has
an absolute magnitude of 
mag and a central surface
brightness of 
mag/arcsec2. There exists a tight
color-magnitude relation for the early-type galaxies in Fornax that
extends from the giant to the dwarf regime.
The faint-end slope of the luminosity function of the early-type dwarfs is
flat (
), contrary to the results obtained
by Kambas et al. (2000).
Key words: galaxies: clusters: individual: Fornax cluster / galaxies: dwarf / galaxies: fundamental parameters / galaxies: luminosity function
© ESO, 2003
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