Related papers: Extended Red Emission: Observational constraints f…
Interstellar dust in nebulae and in the diffuse interstellar medium of galaxies contains a component which responds to illumination by ultraviolet photons with efficient luminescence in the 500 nm to 1000 nm spectral range, known as…
Empirical relationships on the properties of the Extended Red Emission (ERE) are presented. They are based on published observational data and on new results obtained on reflection nebulae illuminated by cold stars. The plot of the width…
Nearby interstellar clouds at high Galactic latitudes are ideal objects in which the interaction of interstellar dust with photons from the well-characterized interstellar radiation field can be studied. Scattering and UV-excited…
Extended Red Emission (ERE) has been detected in many dusty astrophysical objects and this raises the question: Is ERE present only in discrete objects or is it an observational feature of all dust, i.e. present in the diffuse interstellar…
Interstellar dust contains a component which reveals its presence by emitting a broad, unstructured band of light in the 540 to 950 nm wavelength range, referred to as Extended Red Emission (ERE). The presence of interstellar dust and…
We analysed new wide-field, wide- and narrow-band optical images of IC 59 and IC 63, two nebulae which are externally illuminated by the early B-star {\gamma} Cas, with the objective of mapping the extended red emission (ERE), a…
In 1986 Witt & Schild studied the optical emission of selected bright nebulae. Comparison of the data to a model led the authors to conclude the nebulae have too high a level of I-band emission to be explained solely by the scattering of…
Low-dispersion spectra have been obtained from 4000 to 9600 \AA~along the axis and across the dusty halo of the galaxy M82. The spectra of the halo are explained in terms of scattering of the galactic light by dust grains: when divided by…
We present initial results from the first optical spectroscopic survey of high latitude Galactic cirrus clouds. The observed shape of the cirrus spectrum does not agree with that of scattered ambient Galactic starlight. This mismatch can be…
We present low-dispersion visible spectra of two regions of the 30 Doradus nebula. When corrected for atomic continuum emission and divided by the spectrum of the exciting and illuminating stars, one of the two spectra clearly shows…
Extreme scattering events (ESEs) are distinctive fluctuations in the brightness of astronomical radio sources caused by occulting plasma lenses in the interstellar medium. The inferred plasma pressures of the lenses are $\sim 10^3$ times…
We obtained low-resolution, long-slit 5300--9100 A spectroscopy of NGC4826 (a nearby galaxy with an absorbing dust lane (DL) asymmetrically placed across its bulge, associated with several HII regions) with a slit encompassing its bulge,…
In 1998 Gordon, Witt and Friedmann wrote of detection of ERE in diffuse galactic light at high latitudes. The comparaison of diffuse galactic light and starlight over a few regions of the sky cannot, according to the authors, be fully…
We have reviewed the characteristics of the extended red emission (ERE) as observed in many dusty astronomical environments, in particular, the diffuse interstellar medium of the Galaxy. The spectral nature and the photon conversion…
The hypothesis of an extended red emission (ERE) in diffuse Galactic light (DGL) has been put forward in 1998 by Gordon, Witt and Friedmann who found that scattered starlight was not enough to explain the amount of DGL in the R band, in…
The ongoing quest to identify molecules in the interstellar medium by their electronic spectra in the visible region is reviewed. Identification of molecular absorption is described in the context of the elucidation of the carriers of the…
Common-envelope events (CEEs), during which two stars temporarily orbit within a shared envelope, are believed to be vital for the formation of a wide range of close binaries. For decades, the only evidence that CEEs actually occur has been…
Dust particles play a major role in the formation, evolution and chemistry of interstellar clouds, stars and planetary systems. Commonly identified forms include amorphous and crystalline carbon-rich particles and silicates. Also present in…
We present visible and near IR images of the compact HII region Sh 152. Some of these images reveal the presence of Extended Red Emission (ERE) around 698 nm and emission from Unidentified Infra Red Bands (UIRBs) at 3.3 and 6.2 micron.…
We report the first spectroscopic observations of a background star seen through the region between the ionization front and the dissociation front of the nebula IC 63. This photodissociation region (PDR) exhibits intense extended red…