Nearby AGN and their hosts in the near infrared

We present near infrared ISAAC VLT observations of nine nearby (0.01 <= z <= 0.06) Active Galactic Nuclei selected from the Hamburg/ESO Survey and the Veron-Cetty & Veron catalog. Hydrogen recombination lines Pa alpha and Br gamma are observed in seven of the nine sources of which five show a broad component. In three sources, extended 1-0S(1) rotational-vibrational molecular hydrogen emission is detected. Stellar CO absorption is seen in four sources. In one of these objects, an upper limit of the central mass can be determined from the stellar velocity field. H- and Ks-band imaging allow us to determine the morphology class of the host galaxies. Colors (with supplementary J-band 2MASS images) show that the four galaxies with detected CO absorption are characterized by an overall strong stellar contribution. One galaxy shows an increased extinction towards the nucleus. After removal of the nuclear point source, the host galaxies show colors typical for non-active spiral galaxies.