Introducing the LBT Imaging of Galactic Halos and Tidal Structures (LIGHTS) survey

A preview of the low surface brightness Universe to be unveiled by LSST^⋆

¹ Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, C/ Vía Láctea s/n, 38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
e-mail: trujillo@iac.es
² Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna, 38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Padova, Vicolo Osservatorio 3, 35122 Padova, Italy
⁴ Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721-0065, USA
⁵ The Oskar Klein Centre, Department of Astronomy, Stockholm University, AlbaNova, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden
⁶ School of Astronomy, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), PO Box 1956836613 Tehran, Iran
⁷ Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC), Glorieta de la Astronomía, 18008 Granada, Spain
⁸ Universidad Internacional de Valencia, C/ Pintor Sorolla, 21, 46002 Valencia, Spain
⁹ Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, 776 Daedeokdae-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34055, Korea

Received: 18 June 2021
Accepted: 11 August 2021

Abstract

We present the first results of the LBT Imaging of Galaxy Haloes and Tidal Structures (LIGHTS) survey. LIGHTS is an ongoing observational campaign with the 2 × 8.4 m Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) aiming to explore the stellar haloes and the low surface brightness population of satellites down to a depth of μ_V ∼ 31 mag arcsec⁻² (3σ in 10″ × 10″ boxes) of nearby galaxies. We simultaneously collected deep imaging in the g and r Sloan filters using the Large Binocular Cameras. The resulting images are 60 times (i.e. ∼4.5 mag) deeper than those from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and they have characteristics comparable (in depth and spatial resolution) to the ones expected from the future Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Here we show the first results of our pilot programme targeting NGC 1042 (an M 33 analogue at a distance of 13.5 Mpc) and its surroundings. The depth of the images allowed us to detect an asymmetric stellar halo in the outskirts of this galaxy whose mass (1.4 ± 0.4 × 10⁸ M_⊙) is in agreement with the ΛCDM expectations. Additionally, we show that deep imaging from the LBT reveals low mass satellites (a few times 10⁵ M_⊙) with very faint central surface brightness μ_V(0) ∼ 27 mag arcsec⁻² (i.e. similar to Local Group dwarf spheroidals, such as Andromeda XIV or Sextans, but at distances well beyond the local volume). The depth and spatial resolution provided by the LIGHTS survey open up a unique opportunity to explore the ‘missing satellites’ problem in a large variety of galaxies beyond our Local Group down to masses where the difference between the theory and observation (if any) should be significant.