Constraining star formation in M87 using deep HST UV data ("M87-HST-UV")

This HLSP release presents some of the deepest HST ultraviolet imaging ever obtained, combining WFC3/UVIS F275W observations of M87 with complementary WFC3 F606W/F660N and ACS F814W mosaics. The release includes calibrated drizzled images, RMS maps, and a multi-band catalog of point sources detected in the F275W band, with photometry measured in fixed 0.05″ apertures across all filters using SExtractor in dual-image mode.

The accompanying publication (Tamhane et al. 2025) demonstrates how these data constrain M87’s star formation rate (SFR) and star formation history (SFH), revealing a very low present-day SFR (~2 × 10⁻⁵ M☉ yr⁻¹), a modest starburst ~125 Myr ago, and the presence of UV filaments aligned with Hα structures. However, the depth and quality of the UV imaging make this dataset broadly valuable for a range of studies, including the properties of globular cluster populations, searches for faint background UV galaxies, and investigations of stellar populations in dense cluster environments.