The 2MASS Tully-Fisher relation for flat edge-on galaxies

The spiral edge-on galaxies from the "Revised Flat Galaxy Catalog" (RFGC) are identified with the Extended Source Catalog of the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS). A relative number of the 2MASS detected galaxies is 2996/4236 = 0.71. We consider the statistical properties of the Tully-Fisher relations for the edge-on galaxies in the B, I, J, H, and K_s bands. The slope of derived TF relations increases steadily from 4.9 in the B band to 9.3 in the K one. The effect is mainly due to the internal extinction which is different in dwarf and giant spiral galaxies seen edge-on that leads to the tight correlation between galaxy color and luminosity. The moderate scatter of the RFGC galaxies in the `color-luminosity' diagram, 0.86 mag., provides us with a new "cheap" method of mass measurements of distances to galaxies on the basis of modern photometric sky surveys.