WISE Nearby Galaxy Atlas

Jarrett, T.;  Masci, F.;  Tsai, C.;  Petty, S.;  Benford, D.

After eight months of continuous observations from a sun-synchronous polar
orbit, WISE mapped the entire sky at 3.4um, 4.6um, 12um and 22um, producing a
coadded Image Atlas and a Source Catalogue, available through the Infrared
Science Archive. The data reduction pipeline was optimized to detect and
measure the fluxes of point sources. Sources that are larger than one arc
minute in diameter, however, will not have been characterized in the released
data products. Accordingly, we have begun a dedicated project to fully
characterize large, nearby galaxies and produce a legacy image atlas and
catalogue that will serve the community for decades to come. Here we
demonstrate the early results of the WISE Large Galaxy Atlas project for
a dozen galaxies of diverse morphology, including M51, M83, and M101.
Photometry and surface brightness decomposition is carried out with special
super-resolution processing of WISE imaging, achieving spatial resolutions
similar to that of Spitzer-IRAC. In addition to the super-resolution
images, WISE's all-sky coverage provides a tremendous advantage over
Spitzer for building a complete nearby catalog, tracing both stellar
mass and star-formation histories.