The Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory (DRAO) is carrying out a survey as part of an international collaboration to image the northe, at a common resolution, in emission from all major constituents of the interstellar medium; the neutral atomic gas, the molecular gas, the ionised gas, dust and relativistic plasma. For many of these constituents the angular resolution of the images (1 arcmin) will be more than a factor of 10 better than any previous studies. The aim is to produce a publicly-available database of high resolution, high-dynamic range images of the Galaxy for multi-phase studies of the physical states and processes in the interstellar medium. We will sketch the main scientific motivations as well as describe some preliminary results from the Canadian Galactic Plane Survey/Releve Canadien du Plan Galactique (CGPS/RCPG).

We performed a deep Hi and Hα mapping of M31 and M33 in order to get accurate kinematical data of those two galaxies and also to make a comparison between the Hi and Hα kinematics. The Hi data were obtained with the DRAO interferometer and the Hα data with the Fabry-Perot system of the Observatoire du mont Mégantic using an EMCCD as a detector. These data will give us the best possible datasets to derive accurate rotation curves and mass models for those two Local Group spirals and provide some new data for the Hii regions studies of these galaxies. While the Hi observations are of low resolution (~1 arcmin), the high resolution of the Hα data (~1 arcsec) should allow us to get much more details in the central regions, allowing at the same time a much better determination of the kinematical parameters. Hence, the inner part of the rotation curve, so inportant to constraint properly the mass models, will be determined more accurately.

Giant HI shells, with diameters of hundreds of parsecs and expansion velocities of 10-20 s−1 are characteristic observed features of local gas rich galaxies. Although a predictable consequence of the impact of OB associations on the ISM doubts have been raised, as OB stars are not present in the centres of the majority of these shells. Here we combine our observations of expanding ionized shells in luminous H II regions with basic dynamical models to give support to the scenario in which OB associations do produce the HI shells.

Carignan et al. (C06, 2006, ApJ, 641, L109) recently presented an extended HI rotation curve (RC) of M31, using single dish observations from the 100m Effelsberg and Green Bank telescopes. These data were obtained along the semi-major axis of the approaching half of the M31 HI disk and showed a flat RC at large radius, which extends up to ~35 kpc (using D = 780 kpc). The kinematical analysis of M31 is pursued here and new deep 21cm observations obtained at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory (DRAO) are presented. A tilted-ring model is fitted to a new HI velocity field, allowing the derivation of the position angle P.A. and inclination i as a function of radius. We concentrate on the approaching half of the disk in order to compare our new results with those from C06. It is shown that the disk warping of M31 does not severely contaminate the kinematics of the neutral gas. As a consequence, the RC from C06 is in very good agreement with the new derived RC.

New 21-cm observations of Messier 31 are used to measure its rotation curve up to a radius of ~40 kpc. The observations were obtained at the Effelsberg 100-m telescope and extend by ~15 kpc the radius of the last measured point of the rotation curve. A preliminary model of the mass distributionshows that at the last observed velocity point, the dark–to–luminousmass ratio is ~1 for a total mass of ~4.5 × 1011 M๏, whichvalue is comparable with that of the Milky Way. This exploratory project is ongoing and other Hi observations using other radio-telescopes are planned to confirm this result, as well as a mosaic of the Hα emissionline.

We present Hα emission line velocity fields of two Low Surface Brightness galaxies (LSBs) - UGC 628 and UGC 5005 - obtained using Fabry-Perot (FP) interferometry observations at the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope. Our goal is to study the dynamics of LSBs.

Results are presented from a wide area, high resolution HI synthesis survey of the outer regions of the nearby M81 group, where internal (galactic) and external (group-related) evolution processes can be studied simultaneously in great detail. The survey encompasses the star forming dwarf galaxies M81dwA, UGC4483, and HoII, where evidence of ram pressure stripping was recently discovered. The data do not reveal any intergalactic HI, but the outer parts of HoII are reminiscent of tidal tails. We argue however that those structures are equally consistent with the latest ram pressure models including cooling. The case for a hot intergalactic medium in this poor, spiral-only group is thus still open. The survey also puts tight constraints on possible counterparts to the local high velocity cloud population in an external group, reaching a 3σ column density of 1019 atom cm−2 and a 6σ limiting mass of 1.5 × 105M⊙.

We present results from an ongoing survey of the ionized gas kinematics in Virgo cluster spiral galaxies using Fabry-Perot (FP) interferometry. Our goal is to study the environmental effects on galaxy evolution in the Virgo cluster. We report here on the Hα distribution map and velocity field of NGC 4438, an interacting galaxy near the centre of the cluster.

HI synthesis observations of the dwarf “regular” galaxy UGC 2259 are presented. This system turns out to be most suitable for our purpose of studying the mass distribution in late-type spirals. It has a symmetrical HI distribution extending over 2 D25 and a regular velocity field which shows no sign of departure from axial symmetry. Despite the fact that UGC 2259 is fainter than most other objects of the same morphological type, its HI properties are typical of what is expected from an Scd galaxy with a MH/LB = 0.43.

The study of the ratio of dark-to-luminous matter in spiral galaxies has been the subject of several recent studies (Bahcall 1983; Casertano 1983; Carignan and Freeman 1985; van Albada et al. 1985; Carignan 1985). These studies have been possible because of the large number of high sensitivity HI observations which became available in the last few years, allowing to probe the halo potential to very large galactocentric distances. In the case of NGC 3198 (van Albada et al. 1985), it was even possible to derive the rotation curve out to 11 disc scale lengths. One of the important questions, forming the motivation for this type of work, is whether the ratio of dark-to-luminous matter is a function of galaxy mass and/or luminosity.

Although rotation-curve studies of spiral galaxies have unambiguously established the presence of dark matter, and theoretical studies have shown that its location is likely to be in a separate spheroidal halo component (Binney, 1978; Tubbs and Sanders, 1979; Monet, Richstone and Schechter, 1981), very little is known about its spatial distribution and its nature. Recently, Faber and Lin (Faber and Lin, 1983; Lin and Faber, 1983) have shown that, if one can get a rough idea of fundamental parameters like the halo scale length and the halo-to-disk ratio, it is also possible to put strong constraints on the nature of non-luminous matter.

Surface photometry from U.K.S.T.U. plates in U, BJ and RF is presented for the three Sculptor Group galaxies NGC 7793, NGC 247 and NGC 300. Their photometric parameters are derived and compared to those of M33. Our color maps are used to sort out the data into blue and red pixels where the blue pixels profiles are expected to be rather irregular, representative of the clumpy locations of areas of recent star formation while the red pixels profiles should approximate the smoother distribution of the old disk population.