Abstract

Using morphology classifications for galaxies provides a direct approach to probe galaxy populations back to an early stage in their lifetime, and hence to study many astrophysical problems such as large-scale structure, galaxy formation and galaxy evolution. In the past, most of morphology classifications were done visually. In recent years the vast amount of data produced by large surveys (such as SDSS, NED and 2MASS) has made visual inspection a daunting task. Current galaxy classification systems are generally built on the visual characteristics of an image, such as magnitudes and colors and not on the shape of the galaxy. Using magnitudes and colors can provide a level of separation among early-type galaxies (E-Sa) and late-type galaxies (Sb, Sc and irr). But to fully understand the nature of the universe we need to separate early-type and late-type galaxies further. We are using MatLab to look at luminosity profiles of annuli at different radii and luminosity profiles of slices across the galaxy at different angles to distinguish galaxy type. The galaxies used are face-on and large in spatial extent. We will present results for these profiles as well as preliminary results for galaxies with higher inclination angle and lower resolution. These results will set constraints on the limits of our procedure.