Studies of the Centaurus cluster .1. A catalogue of galaxies in the central region of the Centaurus cluster

The central region of the Centaurus cluster was surveyed on a film copy of a high-resolution photographic plate taken with the 100-inch du Pont Las Campanas telescope. From visual inspection of the film, a large number of cluster galaxy candidates were identified down to a limiting magnitude of 21.5 in B. Between cluster members and background objects were distinguished by applying morphological criteria established in previous studies of the Virgo and Fornax clusters. Following the morphological classification of each member, the images of all 296 cluster galaxies on a SRC deep-blue sky survey plate were digitized, processed and analysed with programs written in the image processing package MIDAS. Aperture photometry yielded growth curves and total instrumental magnitudes of the galaxies. The magnitudes were calibrated with independent photometric data and subsequently transformed into standard B-magnitudes. We further established a set of structure parameters for each cluster galaxy: effective surface brightness, effective radius, central exponential surface brightness, and scale length. For the ellipticals we additionally determined the shape parameters of the light profiles.