J. V. Wall

Multiwavelength isophotal data for southern elliptical galaxies

Isophotal profiles are presented for 40 southern elliptical galaxies derived from CCD imaging with B, V, R, I, and Gunn z filters. The data show excellent agreement with other CCD observations. The principal use of these data will be to search for wavelength dependences of isophotal parameters

A CCD image of the galactic centre

Because the galactic centre lies behind approximately 27 magnitudes of visual extinction, observations at visible wavelengths are impossible. The recent introduction of charge-coupled devices (CCDs) to astronomy represents the first opportunity to use sensitive area detectors in the near IR. Using a cooled CCD, we have obtained an image of the galactic centre at an effective wavelength of 0.9 µm. Two unresolved sources were found, separated by 3 arc s along the galactic plane. The detection of the two sources was confirmed by a further observation the following night. The possibility that the new sources are foreground objects cannot be completely ruled out; however, their positions are remarkably close to those of the non-thermal radio source and the 2.2 µm source IRS-16. While it is possible that the new sources could be a pair of highly reddened individual stars or compact clusters, it seems more likely that they are two compact H II regions seen in line emission.

A complete sample of radio galaxies

We report here some preliminary results of a multi-wavelength study of a complete sample of radio galaxies. The sample is comprised of 93 radio sources from the Parkes 11 cm catalog which are identified with galaxies of 17th magnitude or brighter in the declination zone -17° to -40°. Our objective is to cross-correlate the radio, infrared, optical, and other properties of a properly defined sample of radio galaxies.