Absolute magnitudes, intrinsic colours, and colour-magnitude relation for elliptical radio galaxies in the GB/GB2 sample

Corrected absolute magnitudes in the R and B photoelectric bands, and intrinsic colours U-B, B-V, V-R, and R-I for 25 optically luminous elliptical radio galaxies selected from the GB/GB2 sample are given. Corrections for the effects of foreground extinction, aperture, and reddening (K-correction) are applied. Resultant luminosities are compared with those for radio luminous (3C) and radio faint (LBDS) elliptical galaxies. A dependence of the U-V residual color on absolute blue magnitude MB for the GB/GB2 radio galaxies is presented and discussed in terms of a stellar content of galaxy, its evolution, cluster/non-cluster membership, and cluster morphology. It is shown that the highest deficiency of UV light tend to appear in cD- and db-type galaxies, usually dominant members in clusters with Bautz-Morgan type BM =I. 27 refs., 4 figs. , 2 tabs. (author)