1997A&A...323..749P

We present long slit spectroscopy from the blue to the near-IR of the LINER galaxy NGC 4579 (M58). Stellar indices are used as tools to investigate if any differences in the kinematics and/or stellar content exist between the nucleus and the circumnuclear regions of the galaxy. Blue indices are found to be affected by contamination due to emission lines in the central region and the method to measure these indices is discussed. No peculiarities are found in the stellar kinematics with respect to the bulges of normal spirals, whose old population can fit the observations of the bulge of NGC 4579. Alternatively, the low central values of Mg₂ and the high values of Mg₁ in the blue and MgI in the near-IR lead us to propose the dominant bulge stellar population in NGC 4579 to be substantially younger than the one present in ordinary ellipticals and S0 galaxies, and therefore a population with an age of about (2.5±1)Gyr. and a metallicity of (1.5±0.5)Z_☉ is also able to reproduce simultaneously the studied spectral indices as well as the optical spectral energy distribution of the nucleus of NGC 4579.