Discovery of an Optical Jet in the BL Lacertae Object 3C 371

We have detected an optical jet in the BL Lac object 3C 371 that coincides with the radio jet in this object in the central few kiloparsecs. The most notable feature is a bright optical knot 3'' (4 kpc) from the nucleus that occurs at the location where the jet apparently changes its direction by about 30°. The radio, near-infrared, and optical observations of this knot are consistent with a single power-law spectrum with a radio-optical spectral index αro = -0.81. One possible scenario for the observed turn is that the jet is interacting with the material in the bridge connecting 3C 371 to nearby galaxies and the pressure gradient is deflecting the jet significantly.