Intracluster Light

What is intracluster light?

Intracluster Light (IcL) is usually defined as light from stars that are not gravitationally bound to a galaxy, but are still bound to the cluster in which that galaxy resides. IcL is extremely faint (~1% of the sky's brightness) and difficult to detect.

What is this webpage?

This webpage explains a little bit about surface photometry as it applies to IcL observations and gives a brief history of IcL studies to date. This site is primarily devoted to the Popsicle Project, an IcL survey currently in progress.