A Search for "Dwarf" Seyfert Nuclei. VII. A Catalog of Central Stellar Velocity Dispersions of Nearby Galaxies

Luis C. Ho, Jenny E. Greene, Alexei V. Filippenko, Wallace L. W. Sargent

Published 2009-06-22Version 1

We present new central stellar velocity dispersion measurements for 428 galaxies in the Palomar spectroscopic survey of bright, northern galaxies. Of these, 142 have no previously published measurements, most being relatively late-type systems with low velocity dispersions (< 100 km/s). We provide updates to a number of literature dispersions with large uncertainties. Our measurements are based on a direct pixel-fitting technique that can accommodate composite stellar populations by calculating an optimal linear combination of input stellar templates. The original Palomar survey data were taken under conditions that are not ideally suited for deriving stellar velocity dispersions for galaxies with a wide range of Hubble types. We describe an effective strategy to circumvent this complication and demonstrate that we can still obtain reliable velocity dispersions for this sample of well-studied nearby galaxies.