[SW2006] NGC 1549 5 , the SIMBAD biblio

We report on observations of four early-type galaxies performed with the Rutgers Fabry-Pérot in order to search for planetary nebulae (PNe) in these systems. The aim is to use the PNe as kinematic tracers of the galaxy potential. We describe our data reduction and analysis procedure and show that the proper calibration of our detection statistic is crucial in getting down to our limiting magnitude of m₅₀₀₇=26.1. In the case of the two Leo galaxies, we find moderately sized samples: 54 PNe in NGC 3379 and 50 PNe in NGC 3384; NGC 4636 (two PNe) and NGC 1549 (six PNe) are included for completeness. We present our samples in tabular form, as well as the spectrum for each PN. We constructed simple nonparametric spherical mass models for NGC 3379 using a Monte Carlo Markov chain method to explore the space of likely mass models. We find a remarkably constant mass-to-light ratio within five half-light radii with an overall B-band mass-to-light ratio of ∼5. A simple mass-to-light ratio estimate for NGC 3384 yields Υ_B∼11, but it is likely an overestimate.