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M. E. Kaiser (JHU), G. A. Bower, R. F. Green (NOAO/KPNO), STIS Team
We present STIS high spatial resolution long-slit spectroscopy of the nuclear region of NGC\,4742 as part of the STIS GTO program dedicated to understanding the demographics of supermassive central black holes in galaxies.
NGC\,4742 is a relavely nearby (13\,Mpc), early-type galaxy. It was chosen as a low luminosity (MV\,\rm=\,-19.32) candidate in the WFPC-I program to explore galaxy core structure as a function of luminosity (Lauer et al.~1995). The WFPC-I observations exhibit no flattening of the surface brightness profiles into the resolution limit of the observations. Consequently, NGC\,4742 has been classified as a ``power-law'' galaxy based upon its steep surface brightness profile interior to its break radius, rb\,=\,1.4\arcsec (Lauer et al.~1995, Byun et al.~1996).
Our STIS observations will expand upon the results of the WFPC-I program by mapping the nuclear gravitational potential in this galaxy using the Fourier Correlation Quotient method. To achieve this, we have obtained long-slit spectroscopy of the Ca\,II triplet near ~,8600Å~with the {HST}/STIS and the KPNO 4m telescopes. We will determine the bulge rotation from the spatially extended ground based measurements and subtract this from the nuclear profile to obtain the nuclear dynamics.
Support for this work was provided by NAS5-30403.