  We study a sample of 112 galaxies of various Hubble types imaged in the Two
Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) in the Near-Infra Red (NIR; 1-2 $\mu$m) $J$, $H$,
and $K_s$ bands. The sample contains (optically classified) 32 elliptical, 16
lenticulars, and 64 spirals acquired from the 2MASS Extended Source Catalogue.
We use a set of non-parametric shape measures constructed from the Minkowski
Functionals (MFs) for galaxy shape analysis.
  We use ellipticity ($\epsilon$) and orientation angle ($\Phi$) as shape
diagnostics. With these parameters as functions of area within the isophotal
contour, we note that the NIR elliptical galaxies with $\epsilon > 0.2$ show a
trend of being centrally spherical and increasingly flattened towards the edge,
a trend similar to images in optical wavelengths. The highly flattened
elliptical galaxies show strong change in ellipticity between the center and
the edge. The lenticular galaxies show morphological properties resembling
either ellipticals or disk galaxies. Our analysis shows that almost half of the
spiral galaxies appear to have bar like features while the rest are likely to
be non-barred. Our results also indicate that almost one-third of spiral
galaxies have optically hidden bars.
  The isophotal twist noted in the orientations of elliptical galaxies
decreases with the flattening of these galaxies indicating that twist and
flattening are also anti-correlated in the NIR, as found in optical
wavelengths. The orientations of NIR lenticular and spiral galaxies show a wide
range of twists.

Astrophysics