From counts of 60000 stars in the neighborhood of the Fornax dwarf galaxy, the distribution of the projected stellar density in the galaxy has been derived. It is found to be smooth, with its ellipticity aver- aging about 0.35, and with some asymmetry in the central region. The density profile falls off more rapidly with distance than Hubble's interpolation formula for giant ellipticals. This is interpreted as the result of the gravitational influence of the Galaxy on the outer stars of the Fornax dwarf. From estimates of the mass of Fornax it is found that the predicted tidal limiting radius is in reasonable agreement with that observed. There does not appear to be any general obscuration within the galaxy; distant galaxies are distributed uniformly behind it.
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P. W. Hodge (1961) studied this question.
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