paper

Hunting ghosts: the iconic stellar stream(s) around NG5907 under scrutiny

arXiv:1911.12577 · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201937077

Abstract

Stellar streams are regarded as crucial objects to test galaxy formation models, with their morphology tracing the underlying potentials and their occurrence tracking the assembly history of the galaxies. The existence of one of the most iconic stellar streams, the double loop around NGC5907, has recently been questioned by new observations with the Dragonfly telescope. This new work only finds parts of the stream, even though they reach a 1 sigma surface brightness limit of 30.3 mag per sq. arcsec in the g-band. Using 7.2 hours of Luminance L-band imaging with the Milanković 1.4 meter telescope, we have re-observed the putative double loop part to confirm or reject this assessment. We do not find signs of the double loop, but see only a single, knee-shaped stellar stream. Comparing our to the data by the Dragonfly team, we find the same features. Our observations reach a 1 sigma surface brightness limit of 29.7 mag per sq. arcsec in the g-band. These findings emphasize the need for independent confirmation of detections of very low-surface brightness features.

accepted for publication in A&A Letters, 5 pages, 3 figures

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