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ASTRONOMY

 
 

Bulges Large and Small

Konrad Kuijken (Leiden)

I will describe two projects on the kinematics of spheroids. The first concerns a study with HST of proper motions in the bulge of the Milky Way, which is being used to investigate the orbit structure of the galactic bulge/bar, and the gravitational potential in the central kpc of the Galaxy.

The second part of the talk will present the first results of the Planetary Nebulae Spectrograph project. This is centered around a purpose-built instrument for large-scale measurements of the kinematics of the stellar kinematics of stars in the outskirts of elliptical galaxies, where the dark matter potential is expected to dominate the dynamics. First results are puzzling and intriguing.