The photometric properties of elliptical galaxies usually center on the light density and isophotal shapes as a function of radius. As the name implies elliptical galaxy isophotal shapes can be descriped by ellipses and deviations from them.

    The first step in retrieving these quantaties from the simulation results is to create a 2D photometric map using a set of original programs described here.

    After the 2D map is calculated it is transfered into IRAF which is a standard analytical tool used in Astronomy.  Among many other features it can fit ellipses to a 2D photometric field as shown below.

    The background is the log of the galaxies projected density and the black contours are the fitted isophotes. Each isophote has a number of parameters attached to it which describe its brightness, major to minor axis ratio (ellipticity) and boxiness (a4) among other less important ones. These can then be plotted as a function of radius as shown below.

    There does not appear to be anything which distinguishes the remnant simulationmodels which contain a counter rotating core from those which do not. This is not too surprising since none have been found in observations of real galaxies either.