Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 imaging of a sample of early-type Seyfert galaxies

We have defined a complete sample comprising all 14 Seyfert galaxies in early-type (E, S0, Sa) host galaxies with apparent magnitude m(v) < 14.5 mag and recessional velocity cz < 3000 km s(-1). This paper presents Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging observations of 12 of them, the other two having been observed previously with HST. The observations are of the [O III] lambda 5007 and [N II] lambda lambda 6548, 6583 + Ha emission lines and their adjacent continua (centered near 5500 and 8000 Angstrom). We find that all the galaxies in our sample display prominent nuclear dust features. In some objects, the dust strongly influences the morphology of the starlight and ionized gas. Despite the restriction to early-type galaxies, five (possibly six) galaxies of the 14 have a significant (if not dominant) part of their [N II] + H alpha emission originating in H II regions. This result supports the notion that the Seyfert phenomenon tends to be associated with ongoing star formation.