This galaxy shows a single unresolved nucleus
in all three bands. In the PSF-subtracted images used above, low level
emission is seen to at least
3" radius. The nuclear source is extremely red. (The sharper extensions
E-W and to the N in the 2.2
µm image of Fig. 3-4 are probably due to
incomplete PSF removal.) At optical wavelengths (Surace & Sanders 1998, 1999),
this galaxy has a nucleus which appears to be bisected by a dust lane; the
longer wavelength NICMOS data clearly penetrates this dust. The optical
images also exhibit a ``plateau'' of extended blue star formation
surrounding the
nucleus which may correspond to the extended light seen in the NICMOS
data, as well as several extended tidal loops.
Shaded contour plots of the extinction corrected
2.2 µm emission are shown together with the 1.1
µm (upper left)
observed emission. In both panels, the contours and shading are
logarithmic with the contours spaced by factors 21/2. (The level
values are the same as for the figure above). The arcsec displacements
in RA and DEC, given along the borders are measured from the 2.2
µm in
all frames. At the upper left, a length bar is drawn. For the ratio image,
both the 2.2 and 1.1 µm images were smoothed with the same adaptive
smoothing and then smoothed with a Gaussian FWHM = 0.2" in
calculating the 2.2 µm opacity from Eq. 3 (see text). In
cases where a
strong point-source or variable background contaminated the 2.2 µm
image, the extinction corrected image was derived for 1.6
µm. For the
galaxies with strong point-sources, the PSF was fit to the source and then
subtracted and replaced by a Gaussian with the proper integrated flux (see
text - NGC 7469, IRAS 08572+3915, IRAS 05189-2524, PKS 1345+12, IRAS 07598+6508, Mrk 1014 and 3C48).