Further observations of BL Lacertae

Spectrophotometric observations of BL Lac have been obtained under conditions of fair to excellent seeing with BL Lac near the zenith. The nucleus was faint for all observations. Four absorption features identified as the Mg I and MgH band, the 4410-A band, the G-band, and H and K of Ca II, are observed. The redshift is approximately 0.070, in agreement with results in a previous paper. When the effects of the radiation from the central bright source are removed as well as possible, the residual spectral energy distribution is found to be very similar to that of a standard giant elliptical galaxy redshifted by 0.070 and reddened by a factor corresponding to a color excess of 0.28 to 0.40. The absolute visual magnitude of the underlying galaxy is -22.6 if the Hubble constant is 60 km/s per Mpc and the color excess is 0.28.