ELLIPTICALS WITH KINEMATICALLY DISTINCT CORES - HST IMAGING OF THE NUCLEAR-STRUCTURE OF IC-1459

The elliptical galaxy IC 1459 has one of the strongest counter-rotatin g core components of any observed elliptical. Here we present HST Plan etary Camera images of the center of IC 1459. Before deconvolution, ou r V band images reveal a bright point source at the galaxy nucleus, an d dust near the nucleus. After removal of the central point source, de convolution and model fitting, we show that the central starlight prof ile is better fit by a ''cusp'' model than an isothermal core model. T he photometric properties of the stellar light are comparable to those of other ellipticals without counter-rotating core components. There is an indication of a central stellar disk, although its detection is complicated by the extensive dust. Although the velocity field of the emission-line gas is ordered, the dust distribution is very irregular, and indicates nonequilibrium motions. The irregular dust distribution suggests that material is currently infalling and may be fueling the active nucleus. There is no direct evidence which relates the dust and gas to the peculiar stellar kinematics.