J/AJ/108/1598 Virgo cluster ellipticals. III. (Ferrarese+, 1994)
Hubble Space Telescope photometry of the central regions of Virgo cluster
elliptical galaxies. III. Brightness profiles
Ferrarese L., van den Bosch F.C., Ford H.C., Jaffe W., O'Connell R.W.
<Astron. J. 108, 1598 (1994)>
=1994AJ....108.1598F 1994AJ....108.1598F (SIMBAD/NED Reference)
ADC_Keywords: Photometry, surface ; Galaxies, photometry
Abstract:
We have used the Planetary Camera on the Hubble Space Telescope to
study the morphology and surface brightness parameters of a luminosity-
limited sample of fourteen elliptical galaxies in the Virgo cluster.
The total apparent blue magnitudes of the galaxies range between 9.4
and 13.4. In this paper, the core brightness profiles are presented,
while the overall morphology and the isophotal shapes are discussed in
two companion papers [Jaffe et al. AJ, 108, 1567 (1994); van den Bosch
et al. AJ, 108, 1579 (1994)]. We show that, in spite of the spherical
aberration affecting the HST primary mirror, deconvolution techniques
allow recovery of the brightness profile up to 0.2arcsec from the
center of the galaxies. We find that none of the galaxies has an
isothermal core. On the basis of their morphological and photometrical
properties, the galaxies can be divided in two physically distinct
groups, referred to as Type I and Type II. All of the Type I galaxies
are classified as E1 to E3 in the Revised Shapley Ames Catalog (Sandage
& Tammann 1981), while Type II galaxies are classified as E5 to E7.
The characteristics of Type II galaxies are explained by the presence
of disks component on both the 1 arcsec and the 10 arcsec scales, while
Type I galaxies correspond to the classical disk-free ellipticals.
Addresses:
Ferrarese L.
Ford H.C.
Johns Hopkins University and Space Telescope Science Institute,
Baltimore, Maryland 21218
van den Bosch F.C.
Leiden Observatory, Leiden, The Netherlands
Jaffe W.
Leiden Observatory, Leiden, The Netherlands
O'Connell R.W.
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22903
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
tables 37 724 HST surface brightness profile
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: tables
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 8 A8 --- Name Galaxy name
10- 13 F4.1 arcsec Dist Distance from center of galaxy
16- 20 F5.2 mag/arcsec2 SBa Surface brightness along major axis
22- 25 F4.2 mag/arcsec2 e_SBa rms uncertainty on SBa
28- 32 F5.2 mag/arcsec2 SBb []? Surface brightness along minor axis
34- 37 F4.2 mag/arcsec2 e_SBb []? rms uncertainty on SBb
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Origin: AAS CD-ROM series, Volume 3, 1995
References:
Jaffe et al. (1994AJ....108.1567J 1994AJ....108.1567J) Paper I.
van den Bosch et al. (1994AJ....108.1579V 1994AJ....108.1579V) Paper II.
(End) Lee Brotzman [ADS] 08-Nov-1994, Patricia Bauer [CDS] 16-Feb-1995