A Survey of Southern Compact and Bright Nucleus Galaxies

Abstract

During the 1960's, Zwicky made an intensive examination of the Palomar Sky Survey plates that resulted in his “Catalogue of Galaxies and of Clusters of Galaxies” (Zwicky et al. , 1961-1968). In the course of this study, he picked up numerous examples of what he labelled as “compact galaxies and compact parts of galaxies”; five lists were initially circulated and later presented as a catalogue (Zwicky 1971). To Zwicky the “compact” connotation suggested extremely high stellar densities, but line profiles failed to reveal the large velocity distributions expected of such concentrations of stars. Nevertheless an unexpected benefit was that many of his “compact parts” turned out to be the nuclei of actives galaxies, particularly Seyfert galaxies. Furthermore, since the nuclei have to stand out to gain “compact part” status, Seyfert nuclei from Zwicky’s lists tend to be fairly extreme specimens.