THE PECULIAR MOTIONS OF EARLY-TYPE GALAXIES IN 2 DISTANT REGIONS - III - THE PHOTOMETRIC DATA

We present R-band CCD photometry for 776 galaxies observed in the EFAR project. The photometry is compared with photoelectric data, showing that a common zero-point good to better than 1 per cent and a precisio n of 0.03 mag per zero-point have been achieved. We give the circularl y averaged surface brightness profiles and the photometric parameters of the 762 programme galaxies, D-n diameters (at 20.5 mag arcsec(-2)), half-luminosity radii R-e, total magnitudes m(T) and average effectiv e surface brightnesses [SEe]. The photometric parameters are derived u sing the seeing-convolved, R-1/4-plus-exponential fitting algorithm de scribed in Paper IV which optimally combines multiple profiles and cor rects for sky subtraction errors. The parameters of the two-component fits are also given. We find that the diameters D-n span the range 4.8 -90 arcsec, with (log D-n) = 1.30 or 20 arcsec, The run of the effecti ve radii R-e is 1.6-71.2 arcsec, with (logR(e)) = 0.84 or 6.9 arcsec. The total magnitudes m(T) extend from 10.57 to 15.97 mag, with a mean of 13.85 mag. The effective surface brightnesses (SBe) span the range 17.78-22.35 mag arcsec(-2) with a mean of 19.89 mag arcsec(-2), The me an photometric precisions of D-n diameters, magnitudes and surface bri ghtnesses are 0.9 per cent, 0.017 mag and 0.017 mag arcsec(-2) respect ively. In addition, the fitting scheme quantifies and minimizes the ma ny systematic biases affecting the determination of galaxy photometric parameters. We find simple R-1/4 fits for only 14 per cent of the tot al, and simple exponential fits for approximate to 1 per cent of the t otal. The spread in sky values measured from the different profiles of the same object is less than 1 per cent in 85 per cent of the cases. In 80 per cent of the fits a reduced chi(2) of less than 12 is obtaine d. More than 90 per cent of the galaxies have at least one profile ext ending to more than 4 half-luminosity radii. More than 90 per cent of the galaxies are well resolved, having at least one profile where R-e > 2 Gamma, where Gamma is the FWHM of the point-spread function, More than 80 per cent of the profiles have a global signal-to-noise ratio l arger than 300, The extrapolation needed to derive total magnitudes is less than 10 per cent for 80 per cent of the fits. More than 80 per c ent of the galaxies have mean effective surface brightness larger than the observed sky brightness. In 90 per cent of the profiles the estim ate of the contamination of the sky by the galaxy light is less than 1 per cent. Summarizing, the extensive internal comparisons, together w ith Monte Carlo simulations (see Paper IV), show that we derive total magnitudes and half-luminosity radii to better than 0.15 mag and 25 pe r cent respectively for 90 per cent of our sample. In contrast, extern al comparisons show that data in the literature can be strongly affect ed by systematic errors due to large extrapolations, small radial rang e, sky subtraction errors, seeing effects, and the use of a simple R-1 /4 fit. The resulting errors can easily amount to more than 0.5 mag in the total magnitudes and 50 per cent in the half-luminosity radii. Th e errors on the combined quantity FP = logR(e) - 0.3(SBe) which enters the Fundamental Plane equation remain, however, always smaller than 0 .03 dex. The galaxy type classification, based on all of the informati on available to us, shows that 31 per cent of the sample objects, visu ally selected from photographic images to be of early type, are in fac t spiral or barred galaxies. The 69 per cent of galaxies classified as early-type can be subdivided into cD (8 per cent), E (12 per cent wit h a simple R-1/4 law best fit), and E/SO (48 per cent with a disc-plus -bulge best fit), The photographic diameters D-w measured in Paper I c orrelate with D-n diameters or, equivalently, with the Fundamental Pla ns quantity FP = logR(e) -0.3(SBe), with 23 per cent scatter for the e arly-type sample.