Vol 71, No 3 (2016)

In this paper we study the relations between the main characteristics of groups and clusters of galaxies using the archival data of the SDSS and 2MASX catalogs. We have developed and implemented a new method of determining the size of galaxy systems and their effective radius which contains half of the galaxies and not half the luminosity, since the luminosity of the brightest galaxy in a group can account for over 50% of the total luminosity of the group. The derived parameters (log L_K, logR_e, and log σ₂₀₀) for 94 systems of galaxies (0.0038 < z < 0.09) determine the Fundamental Plane (FP), which, with a scatter of 0.15, is similar in form to the FP of galaxy clusters obtained by Schaeffer et al. (1993) and D’Onofrio et al. (2013) with other methods and for different bands. We show that the FP in the near-infrared region (NIR) for 94 galaxy systems has the form of L_K ∝ \(R_e^{0.70 \pm {{0.13}_\sigma }1.34 \pm 0.13}\), whereas in x-rays it has the form of—L_X ∝ \(R_e^{1.15 \pm {{0.39}_\sigma }2.56 \pm 0.40}\). The form of the FP for groups and clusters is consistent with the FP for early-type galaxies determined in the same way. The form of the FP for galaxy systems deviates from the shape that one would expect from virial predictions. Adding the mass-to-light ratio as a fourth independent parameter has little effect on this deviation, but decreases the scatter of the FP for a sample of rich galaxy clusters by 12%.

From the concentration of stars, cold gas, and dust in the direction l = 14.◦7; b = −0.◦9, we have proved the existence of the SerOB1A association at a distance of about 2.1 kpc from the Sun and described its structure. For 29 stars belonging to the association and its vicinity, we present data on radial velocities and profiles of stellar and interstellar lines derived from original high-resolution spectra and obtained from the literature. New spectroscopic data on the unique couple HD168607 and HD168625 are given including the evidence on belonging of both stars to luminous blue variables (LBVs), proving their mutual proximity and membership in SerOB1 A, and also indicating their participation in evolution of the association.

We present the results of measuring longitudinal magnetic fields (B_e), rotation velocities (v_e sin i), and radial velocities (V_r) of 44 stars observed with the Main Stellar Spectrograph (MSS) of the 6-m BTA telescope of the Special Astrophysical Observatory in 2009. For the first time, magnetic fields were detected for the stars HD5441, HD199180, HD225627, and BD+00° 4535. We show that for the same stars, the longitudinal fields B_e measured from the Hβ hydrogen line core and from metal lines can differ by 10% and up to a factor of 2–3. Except in rare cases, magnetic fields measured from the metal lines are stronger. We believe that this phenomenon is of a physical nature and depends on the magnetic field topology and the physical conditions inside a specific star. Observations of standard stars without magnetic fields confirm the absence of systematic errors capable of introducing distortions into the longitudinal-field measurement results. In this work we comment on the results for each of the stars.

We report the results of three-year long observations of OH masers at 1665 MHz in the W3(OH) source carried out with the 32-m antenna of Svetloe Radio Astronomical Observatory.We found that the strongest activity during the period from December 2011 through March 2012 was exhibited by the region at radial velocity −46.2km s⁻¹. The region showed no activity in the ensuing time. The most striking outburst was the event that occurred on January 23, 2013 at UT 03:27. At that time the flux of the region increased by a factor of seven in 90 s, and then decreased down to the initial level. Such a time scale yields the upper estimate of 0.18 AU (2.7 × 10¹² cm) for the linear size of the maser dot. In 2013–2014 intensity variations were found the −47.6 and −45.1km s⁻¹ components with time scales on the order of 10 hours and anticorrelated behavior of the left- and right-hand polarization fluxes. This is the first time that such phenomena have been found in the behavior of OH maser emission, and they cannot be explained by any existing models of maser variability.

We present a new scheme of a moderate-resolution spectrograph based on a cascade of serial holographic gratings each of which produces an individual spectrum with a resolution of about 6000 and a bandwidth of 80 nm. The gratings ensure centering of each part of the spectrum they produce so as to provide uniform coverage of the broadest possible wavelength interval. In this study we manage to simultaneously cover the 430–680 nm interval without gaps using three gratings. Efficiency of the spectrograph optical system itself from the entrance slit to the CCD detector is typically of about 60% with a maximum of 75%. We discuss the advantages and drawbacks of the new spectrograph scheme as well as the astrophysical tasks for which the instrument can be used.