5 Summary

This paper present the velocity dispersions and line-strength indices (H${\beta}$, Mg₁, Mg₂, Mgb, Fe5015, Fe5406, Fe5270, Fe5335, Fe5709, Fe5782, NaD, TiO₁ and TiO₂) inside 1/10 of the effective radius, for 148 early-type galaxies residing in different environments ranging from the field to clusters. The observational strategy and data reduction techniques are discussed. Velocity dispersions are derived using the Fourier-Correlation-Coefficient method of Bender (1990), whose power is to be only weakly sensitive to template mismatching. Line-strength index measurements are calibrated to the Lick/IDS system using stars in common with Worthey et al. (1994). Special care is taken to identify emission lines in the spectra of the sample galaxies. About 62 per cent of the total sample galaxies reveal some degree of emission, with EW[OIII] > 0.3 Å, but only in 32 per cent of the cases emission is securely revealed (EW[OIII] > 0.5 Å) in several emission lines.

The analysis of the absorption features in the spectra of the sample of galaxies presented here will be used for the investigation of the luminosity-weighted ages, metallicities and abundances for the bulk stellar populations of these galaxies.

Please note that Tables 5 and 6 are only available in electronic form at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/395/431. They are also available via ftp at ftp.mpe.mpg.de in the directory people/dthomas/Beuing02 or via WWW at ftp://ftp.mpe.mpg.de/people/dthomas/Beuing02.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the "Sonderforschungsbereich 375-95 für Astro-Teilchenphysik'' of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. CMdO acknowledges support also from FAPESP (Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo) and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. DT and CM gratefully acknowledge the financial support from FAPESP and DAAD during their visit to the Universidade de São Paulo. We are grateful to the referee, Dr. Rampazzo, for the very careful reading of the fist version of the manuscript, and for the competent suggestions. The Digitized Sky Survey was produced at the Space Telescope Science Institute (ST ScI) under U. S. Government grant NAG W-2166. The images used were retrieved via Skyview, Goddard Space Flight centre, Greenbelt, MD 20771 301-286-7780. Skyview is supported by NASA ADP grant NAS 5-32068.