We fit various colour–magnitude diagrams (CMDs) of the Galactic globular clusters NGC 6397 and NGC 6809 (M55) by isochrones from the Dartmouth Stellar Evolution Database (DSED) and Bag of Stellar Tracks and Isochrones (BaSTI) for α–enhanced [α/Fe] = +0.4. For the CMDs, we use data sets from Hubble Space Telescope, Gaia, Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy, and other sources utilizing 32 and 23 photometric filters for NGC 6397 and NGC 6809, respectively, from the ultraviolet to mid-infrared. We obtain the following characteristics for NGC 6397 and NGC 6809, respectively: metallicities [Fe/H] = −1.84 ± 0.02 ± 0.1 and −1.78 ± 0.02 ± 0.1 (statistic and systematic uncertainties); distances 2.45 ± 0.02 ± 0.06 and 5.24 ± 0.02 ± 0.18 kpc; ages 12.9 ± 0.1 ± 0.8 and 13.0 ± 0.1 ± 0.8 Gyr; reddenings E(B − V) = 0.178 ± 0.006 ± 0.01 and 0.118 ± 0.004 ± 0.01 mag; extinctions AV = 0.59 ± 0.01 ± 0.02 and 0.37 ± 0.01 ± 0.04 mag; and extinction-to-reddening ratio $R_\mathrm{V}=3.32^{+0.32}_{-0.28}$ and $3.16^{+0.66}_{-0.56}$. Our estimates agree with most estimates from the literature. BaSTI gives systematically higher [Fe/H] and lower reddenings than DSED. Despite nearly the same metallicity, age, and helium enrichment, these clusters show a considerable horizontal branch (HB) morphology difference, which must therefore be described by another parameter. This parameter must predominantly explain why the least massive HB stars (0.58–0.63 solar masses) are only found within NGC 6809. Probably they have been lost by the core-collapse cluster NGC 6397 during its dynamical evolution and mass segregation. In contrast, NGC 6809 has a very low central concentration and, hence, did not undergo this process.

The knowledge of the positions of the corotation resonance in spiral arms is a key way to estimate their pattern speed, which is a fundamental parameter determining the galaxy dynamics. Various methods for its estimation have been developed, but they all demonstrate certain limitations and a lack of agreement with each other. Here, we present a new method for estimating the corotation radius. This method takes into account the shape of the profile across the arm and its width and, thus, only photometric data is needed. The significance of the method is that it can potentially be used for the farthest galaxies with measurable spiral arms. We apply it to a sample of local galaxies from Savchenko et al.(2020) and compare the obtained corotation radii with those previously measured in the literature by other methods. Our results are in good agreement with the literature. We also apply the new method to distant galaxies from the COSMOS field. For the first time, corotation locations for galaxies with photometric redshifts up to z ∼ 0.9 are measured.

We use a 0.7-m telescope in the framework of the Halos and Environments of Nearby Galaxies (HERON) survey to probe low surface brightness (LSB) structures in nearby galaxies. One of our targets, UGC 4599, is usually classified as an early-type galaxy surrounded by a blue ring making it a potential Hoag’s Object analogue. Prior photometric studies of UGC 4599 were focused on its bright core and the blue ring. However, the HERON survey allows us to study its faint extended regions. With an 8-h integration, we detect an extremely faint outer disc with an extrapolated central surface brightness of μ0, d(r) = 25.5 mag arcsec−2 down to 31 mag arcsec−2 and a scale length of 15 kpc. We identify two distinct spiral arms of pitch angle ∼6○ surrounding the ring. The spiral arms are detected out to ∼45 kpc in radius and the faint disc continues to ∼70 kpc. These features are also seen in the GALEX far- and near-ultraviolet bands, in a deep u-band image from the 4.3-m Lowell Discovery Telescope (which reveals inner spiral structure emerging from the core), and in H I. We compare this galaxy to ordinary spiral and elliptical galaxies, giant low surface brightness (GLSB) galaxies, and Hoag’s Object itself using several standard galaxy scaling relations. We conclude that the pseudo-bulge and disc properties of UGC 4599 significantly differ from those of Hoag’s Object and of normal galaxies, pointing toward a GLSB galaxy nature and filamentary accretion of gas to generate its outer disc.

The presence of dust in spiral galaxies affects the ability of photometric decompositions to retrieve the parameters of their main structural components. For galaxies in an edge-on orientation, the optical depth integrated over the line of sight is significantly higher than for those with intermediate or face-on inclinations, so it is only natural to expect that for edge-on galaxies, dust attenuation should severely influence measured structural parameters. In this paper, we use radiative transfer simulations to generate a set of synthetic images of edge-on galaxies that are then analysed via decomposition. Our results demonstrate that for edge-on galaxies, the observed systematic errors of the fit parameters are significantly higher than for moderately inclined galaxies. Even for models with a relatively low dust content, all structural parameters suffer offsets that are far from negligible. In our search for ways to reduce the impact of dust on retrieved structural parameters, we test several approaches, including various masking methods and an analytical model that incorporates dust absorption. We show that using such techniques greatly improves the reliability of decompositions for edge-on galaxies.

We have investigated the pitch angle (psi) of the spiral arms of galaxies in the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) COSMOS field. The sample consists of 102 face-on galaxies with a two-armed pattern at a mean redshift < z > approximate to 0.5. The typical values of psi in the arms of distant galaxies are shown to be close to those for nearby spiral galaxies. Within one galaxy the scatter of psi for different arms is, on average, half the mean pitch angle. In the z range from 1 to 0 we have found a tendency for psi to decrease. Our analysis of the psi distributions in galaxies at different redshifts is consistent with the assumption that in most of the galaxies at z <= 0.5 the spiral arms are tidal in origin or they arose from transient recurrent instabilities in their disks.

We present a new version of our analytical model of the spatial interstellar extinction variations within the nearest kiloparsec from the Sun. This model treats the three-dimensional (3D) dust distribution as a superposition of three overlapping layers: (1) the layer along the Galactic midplane, (2) the layer in the Gould Belt, and (3) the layer passing through the Cepheus and Chamaeleon dust cloud complexes. In each layer the dust density decreases exponentially with increasing distance from the midplane of the layer. In addition, there are sinusoidal longitudinal extinction variations along the midplane of each layer. We have found the most probable values of 29 parameters of our model using four data sets: the 3D stellar reddening maps by Gontcharov and Mosenkov (2017), Lallement et al. (2019), and Green et al. (2019) and the extinctions inferred by Anders et al. (2022) for 993 291 giants from the Gaia Early Data Release 3. All of the data give similar estimates of the model parameters. The extinction for a star or a point in space is predicted by our model with an accuracy from $$\sigma(A_{\textrm{V}})=0.07$$to 0.37 for high and low Galactic latitudes, respectively. The natural fluctuations of the dust medium dominate in these values. When ignoring the fluctuations of the medium, the average extinction for an extended object (a galaxy, a star cluster, a dust cloud) or a small region of space is predicted by our model with an accuracy from $$\sigma(A_{\textrm{V}})=0.04$$to 0.15 for high and low Galactic latitudes, respectively. Green et al. (2019) and Anders et al. (2022) give in unison an estimate of $$A_{\textrm{V}}=0.12^{m}$$for the extinction at high latitudes across the whole Galactic dust half-layer above or below the Sun with the natural fluctuations of the medium $$\sigma(A_{\textrm{V}})=0.06^{m}$$. If such a high estimate is subsequently confirmed, then it will require to explain how a substantial amount of dust ended up far from the Galactic midplane. Our model is a step in this explanation.