Gl. Granato et al., A STUDY OF A HOMOGENEOUS SAMPLE OF OPTICALLY SELECTED ACTIVE GALACTICNUCLEI .3. OPTICAL OBSERVATIONS, The Astrophysical journal. Supplement series, 89(1), 1993, pp. 35-56
We present CCD observations in BVR optical bands of the homogeneous sa
mple of 42 Seyfert 1 galaxies, that we also observed in near-IR JHK ba
nds (Zitelli et al. 1993; Danese et al. 1992). We have applied to thes
e data the same analysis procedure used for the infrared images, with
the aim of separating the galaxian and nuclear fluxes, as well as inve
stigating the main characteristics of the hosts. Nuclear fluxes have b
een estimated with typical global errors of 0. 1 5 mag, while 0.3 mag
errors are on.average associated to host galaxy magnitudes. It is show
n that in half of the host galaxies the bulge contribute more than 40%
to the total observed fluxes even within small apertures. In the samp
le galaxies disks are dominating over the bulge in the large majority
of the cases, suggesting that a significant fraction of Seyfert galaxi
es could be late-type spirals. Moreover the galactic morphological par
ameters are in the ranges of typical spiral galaxies. The statistics o
f galactic colors show that the host galaxies tend to be bluer than th
e normal ones. This fact added to redder colors found in the IR-bands
strengthens the suggestion that in Seyfert galaxies the star formation
is on average enhanced.