Kinematic signatures Surface-brightness data cannot unambiguously diagnose the presence of a disk since some ellipticals may have intrinsically pointy isophotes for unrelated reasons. To measure velocity profiles, galactic absorption-line spectra are compared with the spectra of template stars. Direct methods synthesize the observed spectrum by adding up shifted versions of the template spectrum. This galaxy has an external ring containing some young stars. The inclination angle of the ring is 37 deg .
Shells have spectral energy distributions characteristic of starlight.
Both the colors and the varied morphologies of shells can be explained by accretion events in which a large elliptical galaxy captures and tidally disrupts a smaller companion. References Bender, R. 1990, Astr. Carter, D. 1979, in Image Processing in Astronomy , eds. Carter, D. 1987, Ap. Faber, S. et al. 1997, submitted.