HST, radio and infrared observations of 28 3CR radio galaxies at redshift z ~ 1: I. The observations

Abstract

Hubble Space Telescope images are presented of a sample of 28 3CR radio galaxies with redshifts in the range 0.6 < z < 1.8, together with maps at comparable angular resolution of their radio structure, taken using the Very Large Array. Infrared images of the fields, taken with the United Kingdom InfraRed Telescope, are also presented. The optical images display a spectacular range of structures. Many of the galaxies show highly elongated optical emission aligned along the directions of the radio axes, but this is not a universal effect; a small number of sources are either symmetrical or misaligned. Amongst those sources which do show an alignment effect, the morphology of the optical emission varies greatly, from a single bright elongated emission region to strings of optical knots stretching from one radio hotspot to the other. The infrared images display much less complexity. Although their significantly lower angular resolution would wash out some of the smaller structures seen in the HST images, it is clear that these galaxies are less aligned at infrared wavelengths than in the optical. In this paper, we discuss the galaxies individually, but defer a statistical analysis of the multi-waveband properties of the complete sample of sources to later papers in this series.