Gary Da Costa (Mount Stromlo Observatory)

The Stellar Populations of dE galaxies in nearby Groups - Professor Gary Da Costa Colloquium

Schottky Room

Abstract

Until relatively recently our knowledge of the stellar populations
of dwarf elliptical (dE) galaxies has been restricted to studies of the
dwarf spheriodal (dSph) companions to the Milky Way and the dSph and
dE companions to M31. These studies have revealed a surprising
diversity of star formation histories - the simple picture of a dE
as a purely old population is apparently not common in the Local Group.
With the advent of HST and large ground based telescopes it is now
possible to study the stellar populations of dEs in the nearest groups
beyond the Local Group. I will present some recent results for dEs
in the Sculptor and Cen A groups, but will concentrate principally
on new HST/ACS observations of dEs in the M81 group.