THE ASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL    VOLUME 111, NUMBER 2, PAGE 645        FEBRUARY 1996

                OPTICAL MORPHOLOGY OF BRIGHT QUASARS ON IMAGES
                       TAKEN WITH 1.2 m SCHMIDT CAMERAS

                                  DIRK FABIAN

        Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Villanova University,
                         Villanova, Pennsylvania 19085

                                  P. D. USHER

 Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University,
                      University Park, Pennsylvania 16802


                                   ABSTRACT

    The optical morphology of bright extragalactic objects listed by Green
    et al. [ApJS, 61, 305 (1986)] is determined on Palomar Observatory Sky
    Survey prints.  Morphological types are assigned according to whether
    objects appear resolved or unresolved.  These are plotted in the Hubble
    Diagram.  When combined with previous results from the Medium-Bright
    Quasar Survey (MBQS), objects of redshift z are found to be unresolved
    on 1.2 m Schmidt telescopes at apparent magnitudes brighter than
    B=21-3/4z over a large magnitude range 12.5 < B < 18.5.  A luminosity
    cutoff for unresolved objects in this range is found to be M_B = -24,
    (H0 = 50), in agreement with an earlier estimate.  Relevance to the
    search for large, bright, host galaxies, and for "naked quasar"
    candidates, is noted.