Folded 1D surface brightness profile along the major axis of NGC 3311 plotted as function of R^1/4. Open symbols show values along PA = 212° (SW), full symbols those along PA  = 32° (NE of the galaxy center). The green continuous line shows the extracted 1D major-axis profile of the Sersic “allmask” model for the V-band FORS1 data described in Sect. 4.1. The red continuum line is the major axis profile for the light centered on NGC 3311 (“maximal” symmetric model, MSM). The blue full line shows the 1D fit to the surface brightness profile along PA = 32° (NE) with a two-component model, consisting of the MSM plus a one-sided exponential profile. The arrows indicate the position of the stream around HCC 026 and the light at R ≃ 80′′ associated with the dwarf galaxy HCC 027, which falls on the extracted profile. See Sect. 4.2 for details.