| The focus of this project is to determine whether or not far infrared radiation can be used as a direct indicator of present star formation. To do this we will study the nature of the heating sources of dust grains responsible for far infrared radiation. Specifically, we have obtained, for a small sample of galaxies, narrow-band observations in the near infrared regime and broad-band observations in the far infrared regime. The near infrared data were obtained from ground-based observatories around the world. The near infrared narrow-band imaging covers the Brackett Gamma (lambda = 2.1650 mum) and Paschen Beta (lambda = 1.2818 mum) recombination lines of hydrogen. The hydrogen lines serve as tracers of the location and rate of present star formation. The far infrared data are in the form of IRAS observations in the 60 mum and 100 mum regimes. In addition to these data, we have obtained optical Halpha, Hbeta, ultraviolet, [OIII] and [SII] images to verify that the near infrared narrowband images are, in fact, tracing star formation and not some other physical process in the interstellar medium. The analysis of these data involves a comparison of spatial correlations and the energy budget of the near infrared and far infrared data for the sample galaxies. |
