An atlas of high-resolution IRAS maps on nearby galaxies

An atlas of far-infrared IRAS maps with near 1 arcmin angular resolution of 30 optically large galaxies is presented. The high-resolution IRAS maps were produced with the Maximum Correlation Method (MCM) image construction and enhancement technique developed at IPAC. The MCM technique, which recovers the spatial information contained in the overlapping detector data samples of the IRAS all-sky survey scans, is outlined and tests to verify the structural reliability and photometric integrity of the high-resolution maps are presented. The infrared structure revealed in individual galaxies is discussed. The atlas complements the IRAS Nearby Galaxy High-Resolution Image Atlas, the high-resolution galaxy images encoded in FITS format, which is provided to the astronomical community as an IPAC product.