Context :

Aims : We probe the stellar population age and metallicity distributions in nearby elliptical galaxies over the largest extension to date .

Methods : Long-slit spectroscopy is made by using the spectrograph SCORPIO of the 6-m telescope of the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciencies .
The Lick indices H \beta , Mg b , Fe 5270 , and Fe 5335 are calculated along the slit up to radii of 1.3 to 3 r _ { e } in 4 galaxies and up to 0.5 r _ { e } in the fifth one .
The comparison with evolutionary synthesis models of simple stellar populations allows us to disentangle age and metallicity and to measure both .

Results : We have found that the mean stellar age is constant along the radius only in one galaxy out of 5 .
The other 4 galaxies demonstrate quite different behaviour of the mean stellar age : the outer parts are older than the centres in 3 cases and younger – in one case .
The metallicity gradients can not be approximated by a single power law over the full radial extension in 4 galaxies of 5 .
The inner metallicity gradients within 0.5 r _ { e } are all rather steep , steeper than –0.4 metallicity dex per radius dex , and are inconsistent with the origin of the elliptical galaxies by a major merger .

Conclusions :