scholarly journals Simulations of HST Observations of Globular Clusters

1988 ◽  
Vol 126 ◽  
pp. 455-464
Author(s):  
John N. Bahcall ◽  
Donald P. Schneider

The high angular resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope will provide opportunities for many fundamental observations of globular clusters, most of which have been extensively discussed in the literature. We have therefore chosen to devote our time (and pages) to a presentation of what HST observations may reveal about some aspects of galactic globular clusters. To avoid infringing upon programs that others may propose, we have limited ourselves to simulations of observations that are part of our Guaranteed Time Observations. [The complete catalog of GTO observations has published by the Space Telescope Science Institute and is available upon request.]

2021 ◽  
Vol 503 (1) ◽  
pp. 1490-1506
Author(s):  
Maximilian Häberle ◽  
Mattia Libralato ◽  
Andrea Bellini ◽  
Laura L Watkins ◽  
Jörg-Uwe Pott ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT We present an astrometric study of the proper motions (PMs) in the core of the globular cluster NGC 6441. The core of this cluster has a high density and observations with current instrumentation are very challenging. We combine ground-based, high-angular-resolution NACO@VLT images with Hubble Space Telescope ACS/HRC data and measure PMs with a temporal baseline of 15 yr for about 1400 stars in the centremost 15 arcsec of the cluster. We reach a PM precision of ∼30 µas yr−1 for bright, well-measured stars. Our results for the velocity dispersion are in good agreement with other studies and extend already existing analyses of the stellar kinematics of NGC 6441 to its centremost region never probed before. In the innermost arcsecond of the cluster, we measure a velocity dispersion of (19.1 ± 2.0) km s−1 for evolved stars. Because of its high mass, NGC 6441 is a promising candidate for harbouring an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH). We combine our measurements with additional data from the literature and compute dynamical models of the cluster. We find an upper limit of $M_{\rm IMBH} \lt 1.32 \times 10^4\, \textrm{M}_\odot$ but we can neither confirm nor rule out its presence. We also refine the dynamical distance of the cluster to $12.74^{+0.16}_{-0.15}$ kpc. Although the hunt for an IMBH in NGC 6441 is not yet concluded, our results show how future observations with extremely large telescopes will benefit from the long temporal baseline offered by existing high-angular-resolution data.


2018 ◽  
Vol 481 (3) ◽  
pp. 3382-3393 ◽  
Author(s):  
D Nardiello ◽  
M Libralato ◽  
G Piotto ◽  
J Anderson ◽  
A Bellini ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (S351) ◽  
pp. 324-328
Author(s):  
Mattia Libralato

AbstractSpectroscopy and photometry have revealed existence, complexity and properties of the multiple stellar populations (mPOPs) hosted in Galactic globular clusters. However, the conundrum of the formation and evolution of mPOPs is far from being completely exploited: the available pieces of information seem not enough to shed light on these topics. Astrometry, and in particular high-precision proper motions, can provide us the sought-after answers about how mPOPs formed and have evolved in these ancient stellar systems. In the following, I present a brief overview of the observational results on the internal kinematics of the mPOPs in some GCs thanks to Hubble Space Telescope high-precision proper motions.


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