The Dragonfly Wide Field Survey. II. Massive gal.

In this study, we use data from the Dragonfly Wide Field Survey to accurately measure the total luminosities and colors of nearby massive galaxies. The low surface brightness limits of the survey ({mu}_g_~31mag/arcsec^2^ on a 1' scale) allow us to implement a method, based on integrating the 1D surface brightness profile, that is minimally dependent on any parameterization.

We construct a sample of 1188 massive galaxies with logM_*_/M_{sun}_>10.75 based on the Galaxy Mass and Assembly (GAMA) survey and measure their total luminosities and g-r colors. We then compare our measurements to various established methods applied to imaging from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), focusing on those favored by the GAMA survey. In general, we find that galaxies are brighter in the r band by an average of ~0.05mag and bluer in g-r colors by ~0.06mag compared to the GAMA measurements.