Testing Black Hole
Mass Measurements in
an Active Galaxy
Figure 7.
Radial surface
brightness profiles
of NGC 4151. The
Gemini/NIFS data
(red) measure stellar
features only (which
is most relevant to the
determination of black
hole mass), so they do
not show the increase
of central surface
brightness due to the
AGN, which is evident
in the Hubble Space
Telescope (green) and
Ohio State University
Bright Spiral Galaxy
Survey (blue) images.
Supermassive black holes characterize galaxy nuclei, and their masses scale with stellar properties in their hosts. This shows that
black