Nuclei of Galaxy Bulges Through HST NIR Imaging

We have analyzed the structure of bulges of early-to intermediate-type spirals, on nuclear and global scales, using HST NIR imaging together with ground-based NIR imaging. The goals are (a) to see whether results on bulge structure derived from ground-based, 1” FWHM seeing data remain valid when high-resolution HST data are used; (2) to compare nuclear properties of bulges to those of ellipticals; and (3) to provide bulge-disk scaling relations based on accurate profile decompositions employing the HST data. Details are presented in Balcells et al. (2003, 2004a, 2004b).

Authors and Affiliations

1. Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, 38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain

   Marc Balcells

2. Dept. of Astronomy, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-2055, USA

   Alister W. Graham

3. Kapteyn Institute, Univ. of Groningen, Postbus 800, 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands

   Reynier F. Peletier

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