The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (blast) 2005: a 4 Deg Galactic Plane Survey in Vulpecula (ℓ = 59

We present the first results from a new 250, 350, and 500μm Galactic Plane survey taken with the Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) in 2005. This survey’s primary goal is to identify and characterize high-mass proto-stellar objects (HMPOs). The region studied here covers 4 deg near the open cluster NGC 6823 in the constellation Vulpecula (l = 59). We find 60 compact sources (< 60 diameter) detected simultaneously in all three bands. Their spectral energy distributions (SEDs) are constrained through BLAST, IRAS, Spitzer MIPS, and MSX photometry, with inferred dust temperatures spanning ∼ 12–40K assuming a dust emissivity index β = 1.5. The luminosity-to-mass ratio, a distance-independent quantity, spans ∼ 0.2–130L⊙ M ⊙ . Distances are estimated from coincident CO(1 → 0) velocities combined with a variety of other velocity and morphological data in the literature. In total, 49 sources are associated with a molecular cloud complex encompassing NGC 6823 (distance ∼ 2.3 kpc), 10 objects with the Perseus Arm (∼ 8.5 kpc) and one object is probably in the outer Galaxy (∼ 14 kpc). Near NGC 6823, the inferred luminosities and masses of BLAST sources span ∼ 40– 10 L⊙, and ∼ 15–700M⊙, respectively. The mass spectrum is compatible with molecular gas masses in other high-mass star forming regions. Several luminous sources appear to be Ultra Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of British Columbia, 6224 Agricultural Road, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1, Canada Department of Physics & Astronomy, Cardiff University, 5 The Parade, Cardiff, CF24 3AA, UK Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA 91109-8099 Observational Cosmology, MS 59-33, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 School of Physics, University of Exeter, Stocker Road, Exeter, EX4 4QL, UK Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, 209 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104 Department of Physics, University of Miami, 1320 Campo Sano Drive, Carol Gables, FL 33146 Instituto Nacional de Astrof́ısica Óptica y Electrónica (INAOE), Aptdo. Postal 51 y 72000 Puebla, Mexico Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Toronto, 60 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3H8, Canada Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Toronto, 50 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3H4, Canada Department of Physics, University of Toronto, 60 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 1A7, Canada Istituto di Radioastronomia, Largo E. Fermi 5, I-50125, Firenze, Italy University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus, Physics Dept., Box 23343, UPR station, San Juan, Puerto Rico Laboratoire APC, 10, rue Alice Domon et Léonie Duquet 75205 Paris, France Department of Physics, Brown University, 182 Hope Street, Providence, RI 02912 [email protected]