NGC 2623 has a highly reddened nucleus with a possible short tidal feature or spiral arm at ~ 1" radius to the SW (seen best in the 1.1 µm image). In the optical, prominent tails are seen suggesting that this system underwent a significant merging event in the past (Toomre 1977, Joseph & Wright 1985). However, at 1.6 and 2.2 µm, the light profiles are smooth, following approximately an r^1/4 law (Wright et al. 1990). The latter morphology suggests that the galaxies which may have merged have coalesced into a common nucleus. A weak VLBI radio core is seen in the nucleus of NGC 2623 (cf. Lonsdale, Smith & Lonsdale 1993). In CO(1-0) the emission complex is ~ 1.6" in diameter with kinematic major axis E-W (Bryant & Scoville 1999).

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 2^1/2. (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).