A Catalog of Automatically Detected Ring Galaxy Candidates in PanSTARSS

Abstract

We developed and applied a computer analysis method to detect ring galaxy candidates in the first data release of the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (PanSTARRS). The method works by applying a low-pass filter, followed by dynamic global thresholding, to search for closed regions in the binary mask of each galaxy image. Applying the method to ∼3 × 10 6 PanSTARRS galaxy images produced a catalog of 185 ring galaxy candidates based on their visual appearance.