1995A&A...299...34N

A ROSAT HRI observation of the cluster MS0839.9+2938 at z=0.194 is presented. It confirms the earlier suggestion, based on the detection of extended Hα emission, that the inner regions of this cluster are dominated by a cooling flow. Within the cooling radius a marginally significant evidence is found of structures in the surface brightness, which are similar to those more significantly found in two less distant cooling flow clusters (A2029 and 2A0335+096). We note that, although its barycentre falls on top of the central giant elliptical galaxy, the azimuthally averaged brightness distribution does not peak at that position and actually stays flat out to about 40kpc (10") from the galaxy centre. From comparison with the two clusters mentioned above, this situation seems peculiar, and it is suggested that it could arise from photoelectric absorption by cold gas within the cooling flow, with an equivalent column density in the order of 5x10²¹/cm² within ∼10" from the centre, a factor 2-3 higher than the column spectroscopically detected in the comparison clusters.