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   52107
   ASCA is ideally suited for studying the physical properties of the hot
   gas in luminous early-type galaxies; yet, the sample of sufficiently
   bright systems that have been previously observed is <10 due, in part,
   to the small number of identified bright potential targets. We have
   used the recently released ROSAT All-Sky Survey to select a flux-
   limited sample of 19 early-type galaxies -- 5 of which are included in
   this proposal. We plan to derive the spatial distributions of
   temperature and elemental abundances in order to constrain the dark
   matter content and early evolution of these galaxies. This science can
   only be done for these x-ray bright systems.
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