The APM bright galaxy Surveys: the Equatorial Galaxy Catalog
Session 38 -- Digitizing the Sky Part II
Oral presentation, Tuesday, 31, 1994, 2:00-5:30

## [38.06] The APM bright galaxy Surveys: the Equatorial Galaxy Catalog

S. Raychaudhury (SAO), D.~Lynden-Bell, C.~Scharf (U of Cambridge, UK), M.J.~Hudson (U of Durham, UK)

The catalogs of bright galaxies ($B_J<16.5$) compiled from APM scans of UKST IIIa-J Sky Survey plates have now covered most of the southern sky ($|b|>20^\circ$). This presentation reviews the current status of these catalogs, and the ongoing scientific research supported by them. In particular, the first results from the catalog of galaxies ($B_J<17$, $D>0^\prime .5$) compiled from the IIIa--J plates of the UKST Equatorial Survey are presented. This covers a part of the sky ($-17^\circ < \delta < -2^\circ$, $|b|>20^\circ$) that was not surveyed for the UGC and ESO catalogs, and hence is the first equivalent galaxy catalog in the Equatorial Sky. All galaxy candidates from a preliminary star-galaxy separation exercise were visually inspected, and the identified galaxies were assigned a morphological type. This catalog of over 50,000 galaxies from 200 plates lists accurate positions and shape parameters for all galaxies, together with their diameters and $B_J$ magnitudes, measured by edge-matching and CCD calibration.