Introduction

NGC 5266 is a bright E4 elliptical galaxy ( = 3044 km ) with a prominent dust lane along its projected minor axis. It has been studied in detail optically (Caldwell 1984; Varnas et al. 1987), where it shows that the stars rotate about the optical minor axis while the gas in the dust lane rotates about the optical major axis, i.e. the kinematic axes of the stars and gas appear orthogonal. Both Caldwell (1984) and Varnas et al. (1987) suggested that the underlying galaxy is triaxial.

>From narrow-band imaging in the and [NII] lines, Goudfrooij et al. (1994) showed that the ionized gas in NGC 5266 lies in a ring clearly associated with the dust ring. Sage & Galletta (1993) made CO observations of NGC 5266 and found that the molecular gas also has a ring-like distribution and is co-rotating with the ionized gas. Varnas et al. (1987) also detected HI in NGC 5266 using the Parkes 64m radio telescope and found that the galaxy contains more than M of neutral hydrogen, one of the largest amounts observed in any elliptical galaxies.

Here, we present the results obtained from HI observations of this galaxy done with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). Preliminary results were presented in Morganti et al. 1995 while more details and a complete discussion of the ATCA observations are given in Morganti et al. 1996.

© Copyright Astronomical Society of Australia 1997