Early-type galaxies color evolution

For each cluster, we used imaging from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to determine morphological types of the galaxies. These types were determined both by an automated technique and from visual inspection.

We performed simulations to determine the accuracy of the automated classifications and found a success rate of ~75% at m(L*) or brighter magnitudes for most of our HST imaging data with the fraction of late-type galaxies identified as early-type galaxies to be ~10% at m(L*) to ~20% at m(L*+2). From ground-based optical and near-infrared imaging, we measured the zero point and scatter in the color-magnitude relation of the elliptical and S0 galaxy populations, which we combine with the sample of Stanford et al. (1998ApJ...492..461S), yielding a sample of cluster early-type galaxies that span a look-back time of almost 9Gyr from the present.