1994PASP..106...71M

The subtraction of a point-spread function (PSF) from QSO images and subsequent deconvolution of the residual is a tool of potential interest for exploring the properties of QSO host galaxies. To test the power of this technique, we synthesize the appearance of QSOs at z=0.3 by combining bright stellar profiles and artificially redshifted images of seven nearby, luminous galaxies with interesting morphology. Such models offer an opportunity to measure how well the profile subtraction method is able to recover the flux and structure of host galaxies. Morphologically, several of our models do resemble real QSOs. In particular, the object created from the image of Arp 243 looks very much like Mrk 1014. Some QSOs have compact galactic companions; these systems appear to be well-represented by our QSO models employing interacting galaxies as hosts. Although, for an assumed seeing FWHM of 1.1", the subtraction and deconvolution method successfully recovers characteristic features of interacting systems, it is unable to recover spiral structure at this redshift. Azimuthally averaged radial brightness profiles of the subtraction residuals usually match the profiles of the original galaxies to within 1.4" of the central pixel. For our assumed parameters, careful application of an objective PSF subtraction procedure can restore an image comprising approximately 90% of a host galaxy's total brightness.