E and S0 galaxies are said to be early-type galaxies, S0/a and Sa galaxies are called early-type spirals, Sc-Sm galaxies are called late-type spirals and Sab-Sbc galaxies are called intermediate-type spirals. Unlike for stars, no real temporal meaning was to be implied by these terms.
The value of the Hubble classification system, as well as its limitations, can only be appreciated by examining large numbers of galaxies and attempting to classify them within that system. The small number of astronomers who actually did this, such as Sandage, de Vaucouleurs, van den Bergh and Morgan, all saw the need for modifications or even alternative views, which led to major revisions of the system. This article uses images from the EFIGI project (Baillard et al. 2011; de Lapparent et al. 2011) to illustrate galaxies of different types within the framework of the CVRHS classification system (Buta et al. 2015). The classifications are from Buta (2019).
Figure 1.3. The de Vaucouleurs (1959) revised Hubble–Sandage (VRHS) system of galaxy classification, where the Hubble “tuning fork” has become a classification volume. Top: The VRHS stage sequence. Bottom left: The cross-section of families and varieties. Bottom right: Examples of families and varieties at stage Sbc (from Buta et al. 2007)
The basic outline of the HS system (Sandage 1961) is depicted in Figure 1.2 and that for the VRHS system is depicted in Figure 1.3. In the HS system, Sandage added the (r) and (s) subtypes, which are also used in the VRHS. The HS system still depicts galaxy morphology as a “tuning fork”, but is more complicated than Hubble’s original tuning fork (Figure 1.1). In the VRHS, the tuning fork is replaced with a classification volume whose long axis is the stage (E..S0..Sa, Sb..Im, etc.), and whose short axes are the family (SA, SAB, SB) and the variety [(s), (rs), (r)]. The use of “SAB” to denote galaxies having a bar of intermediate apparent strength and “(rs)” for partial inner rings (pseudorings) are major hallmarks of the VRHS and CVRHS systems. Not depicted in the volume are outer rings, large structures about twice the size of a bar in barred galaxies and nuclear rings, much smaller structures about one-tenth the size of a bar in barred galaxies. The appearance of the volume with a broad middle section and narrower ends is intended to depict how the diversity of families and varieties varies with stage. The greatest diversity is found near stage S0/a, while the diversity diminishes by stages S0 and Im either because bars become difficult to recognize or because rings are simply not present.
The CVRHS is defined by the same kind of classification volume as the VRHS, but with a more finely detailed division into various subtypes. Figure 1.4 shows a cross-section of types through any CVRHS stage from S0° to Sm. The arrangement of families and varieties is the same as in the VRHS, except that de Vaucouleurs’ vision of continuity is carried further with the use of underline notation that he had applied mainly in his 1963 paper, “Revised Classifications of 1500 Bright Galaxies”. The family sequence became SA, SAB, SAB, SAB, SB and the variety sequence became (s), (rs), (rs), (rs), (r). However, in order to recognize outer and nuclear rings in the system, the CVRHS system denotes the presence or absence of an inner feature as the “inner variety”, the presence or absence of an outer feature as the “outer variety”, and the presence or absence of a nuclear feature as the “nuclear variety”. The term “inner feature” now refers to inner rings and lenses, not just inner rings, and the same is true for outer and nuclear features (the latter also including nuclear bars). The recognition of outer pseudorings (R′) is also one of the hallmarks of the VRHS and CVRHS systems. The central subtype in Figure 1.4, (R)SAB(rs,nr), is meant to convey the generalization of VRHS varieties to include inner, outer and nuclear varieties.
Figure 1.4. A cross-section through the CVRHS system of families and varieties including the de Vaucouleurs (1963) underline notation. The central “cell” is meant to extend the concept of galactic varieties to outer and nuclear features, as well as additional inner features such as lenses
de Vaucouleurs (1963) also introduced the underline notation for stages, as in SA(s)ab, which means “closer to Sb than to Sa”. Although this notation can be applied directly as for families and inner varieties, it has appeared mainly in classifications based on averages of multiphase (or repeat) efforts designed to check for consistency (e.g. Buta et al. 2015). This usage of underlines for stages, families and varieties considerably increases the number of “cells” in the CVRHS as compared to the VRHS, and one may well question whether some of these cells might not have any entrants. Buta (2019) showed that for the EFIGI sample, the cells of the CVRHS system are roughly evenly occupied among late S0s and early-type spirals, but not among later-type spirals. This means the classification volume lacks the symmetry depicted in Figure 1.3.
In the following sections, the different types of galaxies are described in more detail.
1.3. Elliptical galaxies
For more than two decades, elliptical galaxies were the subject of the most intense extragalactic research, spawning many meetings and research papers that underscored how deceptive the simple appearance of these galaxies is. When studied in detail both photometrically and spectroscopically, it becomes clear that the history of ellipticals is likely very complex. The main issues examined in detail are as follows: isophote shapes and orientations; characteristics of luminosity profiles; the presence of dust, rings, and peculiar structures; how low-luminosity ellipticals connect to high luminosity ellipticals; and the characteristic scaling relations between measured quantities such as physical size, surface brightness and central velocity dispersion.
The VRHS system as depicted in Figure 1.3 interprets E galaxies in terms of two stages: E and E+. A normal elliptical (E) shows a smooth decline in brightness as a function of galactocentric distance, with no inflections or other apparent structure. Type E+ galaxies are considered as “late” ellipticals showing some traces of structure. The structure can be in the form of a subtle lens, a feature that when more apparent is seen to have a shallow brightness gradient interior to a sharp edge (Sandage 1961; Kormendy 1979). In the Third Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies (RC3; de Vaucouleurs et al. 1991), the E+ classification was also applied to brightest cluster members having a shallow brightness gradient (or an apparent extended envelope) in the outer regions. In the Morgan (1958) classification system, such objects are classified as type cD. Examples of E and E+ galaxies are shown in Figures 1.5 and 1.6. Other aspects of E galaxy morphology include the following:
Disky versus boxy isophotes: The shapes of E galaxy isophotes carry important clues to their history. Kormendy and Bender (1996) noted how Hubble’s main E galaxy classification criterion, the apparent flattening (as in, e.g. E3), had little physical significance, being determined mainly by how a galaxy is viewed. Very few ellipticals are recognized as being more flattened than E4. NGC 4623 in Figure
