Morphological analysis of massive early-type galaxies in the Virgo Cluster.

The authors report on detailed CCD-surface photometry in Cousins V,R,I filters of nine bright early-type galaxies in the Virgo Cluster. The isophotes of the galaxies were fitted by ellipses and the deviations were analysed by means of Fourier techniques. The radial variations of the ellipticities, the position angles of the major axes and of the color indices are presented. Box-shaped isophotes were detected in six objects. Two of the galaxies exhibit disk components. The color index images show that three galaxies contain dust. The frequent occurrence of box components and dust features indicates a high interaction rate of these massive galaxies.