The western nucleus in PKS 1345+12 is unresolved
in all three bands and much redder than the eastern nucleus. The
eastern nucleus is clearly resolved and
extended. The common envelope for the two nuclei is extended in the
east-western direction, as well as to the south. Evans et al. (1999b)
compare the near-infrared (NICMOS) data with radio data and recently
acquired CO(1 -> 0) interferometry to show that the molecular gas and
radio jets of PKS 1345+12 are associated with the redder nucleus,
and thus
that the molecular gas is the likely source of fuel for the imbedded,
radio-loud AGN.
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).