SCUBA observations of the elliptical galaxy NGC 4374

We present SCUBA imaging and photometry of the elliptical galaxy NGC 4374. The imaging observations are used to examine the spatial distribution of thermal emission from dust and the radio-to-infrared continuum spectrum. In the SCUBA 850-mu m image, the galaxy is found to be a point source, constraining the emission to a region less than 15 arcsec across (1.5 kpc for a distance of 20.74 Mpc). The simplest interpretation is that the 2000-850 mu m SCUBA emission is synchroton from a compact core or inner jet, and most unlikely to be thermal emission from cold diffuse dust. We cannot exclude free-free emission, but this would be very unexpected. The thermal emission from dust is shown in IRAS data and these, along with the 450-mu m SCUBA datum, give a dust temperature of 35 K, corresponding to a dust mass of 1.2 X 10(5) M.. These are pilot observations in a programme to look for cold, diffusely distributed dust in elliptical galaxies; however, much deeper 450-mu m imaging is required to investigate this in NGC 4374.