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L. Armus (SIRTF Science Center, Caltech), B.T. Soifer, G. Neugebauer (Caltech)
Ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) have the luminosities of quasars, yet emit nearly all of their energy in the far--infrared part of the spectrum. With an infrared luminosity of nearly 1013L\odot, IRAS 09104+4109 is one of the most luminous objects in the IRAS survey. The presence of a Seyfert 2 optical spectrum, broad, polarized optical line emission, and a double--lobed radio jet all point to a buried quasar as the source of power in IRAS 09104+4109. What makes IRAS 09104+4109 unique, is that it is a cD galaxy at the center of what is apparently a rich, flattened cluster at z=0.44. This cluster may be experiencing a cooling flow depositing as much as 500-1000 M\odot yr-1 of material over the central 200 kpc. We have imaged IRAS 09104+4109 with the WFPC2 in the F622W, F814W, and FR680N filters to obtain rest--frame blue, visual, and [OIII] emission--line images of this system on sub--kpc scales. IRAS 09104+4109 displays a complex morphology on the smallest scales, with radiating filaments, an asymmetric emission--line nebula, and a number of faint, irregular blue objects surrounding the cD galaxy. We combine these data with new, high--resolution K--band imaging from the W.M. Keck Telescope and discuss the nature and interplay between the enshrouded quasar nucleus, the cD host galaxy, and the cluster.