Dust and ionized gas in nine nearby early-type galaxies imaged with the hubble space telescope advanced camera for surveys

We present V and I continuum images and Hα+[N II] maps of nine early-type galaxies observed with the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope. Dust and ionized gas are detected in all galaxies. The optical nebulae are primarily concentrated on the nuclei and extend out to radii of a few hundred parsecs in compact clumps, filaments, or disks. Two galaxies, NGC 6166 and NGC 6338, also possess diffuse, ionized filaments on kiloparsec scales. The ionized gas is entirely contained within the nuclear disks of ESO 208-G021, NGC 3078, and NGC 7720. In the radio-loud galaxy NGC 6166, emission-line filaments are detected along the radio lobes, possibly as a result of shock ionization. A wide range of ionized gas masses, M _g ≈ 7 × 10 ²-3 × 10 ⁶ M _⊙, are calculated from the observed fluxes. Even in this small sample, the orientation of the ionized material correlates well with the major or minor axis of the galaxies, consistent with an external origin for the dust and gas.