Highlights from Semesters 95A, 95B, 96A, and 96B 2.1.1. The spatial information that this instrument provides can be used to identify the dominant excitation processes occuring at different hot spots within the same galaxy, and to ascertain whether or not the star formation is coeval. The same instrument was used to investigate the starformation properties of the circumnuclear ring in the Seyfert galaxy NGC1068. The Br and molecular hydrogen line morphologies are very different, indicating the relative importance of star formation, shocks and fluorescence. In one object, in which the lines seen at optical wavelengths are narrow, the observers used CGS4 to detect a broad H line.
Many new lines are evident in the new spectrum.
A total of 40 elliptical galaxies in clusters were imaged at J and K by B. Mobasher. The data are leading to a significant reduction in the D- relation for ellipticals compared to the optical. The infrared relation is being used to zero-point a similar relation in the field and to study the streaming motion in the Great Attractor region. J, H, and K band imaging polarimetry of NGC 1068 by J.H. Hough and colleagues, using the dual beam polarimeter provided by the University of Hertfordshire, directly revealed for the first time the obscuring torus in this classic Seyfert 2 nucleus. The existence of the torus is in agreement with predictions of the unified theory of Seyfert galaxies.