THE ELLIPTIC GLOBULAR-CLUSTER SYSTEM OF NGC-720

We investigated the morphology of the globular cluster system of the E 5 galaxy NGC 720, and found it to resemble the ellipticity, position a ngle and surface density profile of the galactic light distribution, a nd to differ from the corresponding properties of the X-ray isophotes. The globular cluster system of NGC 720 can be considered as poor, wit h only a total of 660 +/- 190 clusters. We derive from the globular cl uster luminosity function a distance of (m-M) = 31.35 +/- 0.35 mag or 18.6 +/- 2.2 Mpc, leading to an absolute visual luminosity of M(v) = - 21.18 +/- 0.25 mag and thus a low specific frequency of S = 2.2 +/- 0. 9, expected for an isolated galaxy.