STUDIES OF THE CENTAURUS CLUSTER .1. A CATALOG OF GALAXIES IN THE CENTRAL REGION OF THE CENTAURUS CLUSTER

The central region of the Centaurus cluster was surveyed on a film cop y of a high-resolution photographic plate taken with the 100-inch du P ont Las Campanas telescope. From visual inspection of the film, a larg e number of cluster galaxy candidates were identified down to a limiti ng magnitude of 21.5 in B. Between cluster members and background obje cts were distinguished by applying morphological criteria established in previous studies of the Virgo and Fornax clusters. Following the mo rphological classification of each member, the images of all 296 clust er galaxies on a SRC deep-blue sky survey plate were digitized, proces sed and analysed with programs written in the image processing package MIDAS. Aperture photometry yielded growth curves and total instrument al magnitudes of the galaxies. The magnitudes were calibrated with ind ependent photometric data and subsequently transformed into standard B -magnitudes. We further established a set of structure parameters for each cluster galaxy: effective surface brightness, effective radius, c entral exponential surface brightness, and scale length. For the ellip ticals we additionally determined the shape parameters of the light pr ofiles.