Detection of the underlying galaxy in the QSO 3C48

Observation of the quasar 3C48 reveals that the faint nebulosity to the north and south of it is dominated by starlight and that the stars have a redshift close to that determined from the broad emission lines in the quasar spectrum. This provides the first direct evidence that a quasar is associated with a galaxy and lies at a distance corresponding to its redshift. The observations were made with a combination of a spectrograph and a charge-coupled device as a detector and took two hours of telescope time. A continuum with absorption features was seen as indicative of a young, hot stellar population. While the redshift of the underlying galaxy is the same as that of the permitted lines in the quasar, it differs from the redshift of the forbidden lines by 500 km/s.