The distribution of light in galaxies : the edge-on spiral NGC 5907

A bulge and disk decomposition of an H-band (1.68 μm) image of the late-type, edge-on spiral NGC 5907 is presented. The disk is radially modeled as a decaying exponential and vertically as a sech (z) function, and the bulge fitted with a modified Hubble profile. From these fits, it is found for the disk that the exponential scalelength is 4.0 kpc and the exponential scaleheight is 0.34 kpc, and that the bulge-to-disk luminosity ratio (B/D) is 0.05. The near-infrared scale parameters are significantly smaller than those derived from optical observations, which can be explained by assuming the edge-on disk is optically thick in absorption at visual wavelengths due to dust