Anisotropic ionizing radiation in NGC5252

THE different kinds of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and quasars may be fundamentally similar, and owe their observed differences to anisotropy in the distribution of their emitted radiation: apparently different objects may then be the same thing seen from different viewpoints. In particular, it has been proposed that narrow-line Seyfert 2 galaxies are Seyfert 1 galaxies for which the broad-line and continuum emitting regions are hidden by obscuring material along our line of sight^1,2 Here we present narrow-band imaging observations of the Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC5252 which strongly support such unifying hypotheses. Images in the light of the [O III] line at λ = 5,007 Å reveal a sharply defined bi-conical structure extending to a maximum radius of ∼33 kpc (H₀ = 50 km s^-1 Mpc^-11) along the radio-emission axis. This is just the type of structure expected if the ionizing-radiation field from the nucleus is anisotropic. A map of the ratio of the [O III] and Hα lines shows a central band perpendicular to the cones that we identify as the disk or torus responsible for collimating the radiation field.