Search

Calculations modeling the effects of stellar evolution on elliptical galaxies (e.g., Bruzual and Kron 1980, Bruzual 1981) suggest that the shape of the spectral flux distribution should remain almost constant in the red and near-infrared out to at least z ∼ 2. Thus, it should be possible to derive the redshift of a distant elliptical galaxy by fitting a model galaxy spectrum to broadband near-infrared (RIJHK) photometry.

This paper is concerned with the distant radio galaxies in a sample of bright sources selected at 178 MHz by Laing, Riley & Longair (1982). This sample is 96% complete for sources with θ < 10′ and the bias of the 3CR catalogue against sources of large angular size has also been reduced. Deep optical searches have located many candidate identifications, but the probability of a chance coincidence with an unrelated object is appreciable, especially in the faintest cases, unless the area to be searched is small. We have therefore mapped the sources with candidate identifications having V > 20, using the VLA at a wavelength of 6 cm (Laing, Owen & Puschell, in preparation), in order to search for radio cores. We have so far located cores in 16/23 sources and set 5σ upper limits of 0.6 mJy for the remainder. None of the cores had been detected previously. In all cases, the cores coincide with optical objects, although one source (3C 340) had been misidentified. Several ambiguities have now been resolved.

The purpose of this communication is to update our knowledge of the radio structural properties of quasars and blank field radio sources (blank field ≡ any radio source without an identification on the Palomar Sky Survey prints). The quasar sample consists of all sources (25) with angular sizes greater than 10 arcsec in the list of Jodrell Bank quasars observed by Owen, Porcas and Neff (1978). The blank fields consist of 16 3CR sources also with structures >10 arcsec based on Cambridge 5 km telescope observations. The sources were selected in low-frequency surveys; their emission at ν < 1 GHz is dominated by extended components with steep spectra. Thus, both samples should be oriented randomly in space except for a slight bias to be in the plane of the sky.