The nearby Seyfert 2 Galaxy NGC 1068 was observed with speckle imaging
techniques in the near-infrared H-band (1.6 microns) at the Hale 200-inch
Telescope and K-band (2.2 microns) at the 10 m Keck I Telescope.
Images with diffraction limited or near-diffraction limited resolutions of
0.''05 - 0.''1 were obtained and used to search for structure in the nuclear
region. Images of the nucleus of NGC 1068 reveal an extended region of emission
which accounts for nearly 50% of the nuclear flux at K-band. This region
extends 10 pc on either side of an unresolved point source nucleus which is at
most, 0.''02 or 1.4 pc in size. Both the point source and the newly imaged
extended emission are very red, with identical H-K colors corresponding to a
color temperature of 800 K. While the point source is of a size to be
consistent with grains in thermal equilibrium with the nuclear source, the
extended emission is not. It must consist either of nuclear emission which has
been reflected off an extended dusty disk or of small grains raised to
transiently high temperatures by reflected UV photons.Comment: accepted to AJ, AAS LaTeX and epsfig, 22 pages incl. 5 ps figure
