IAU01183
Presentation type requested: ORAL
THE KISS SURVEY FOR NEARBY EMISSION-LINE GALAXIES
Caryl Gronwall
Pennsylvania State University
The KPNO International Spectroscopic Survey (KISS) is an objective-prism survey for extragalactic emission-line objects. KISS combines many of the features of previous slitless spectroscopic surveys that were carried out with Schmidt telescopes using photographic plates with the advantages of modern CCD detectors. It is the first purely digital objective-prism survey, and it extends previous photographic surveys to much fainter flux limits. The results of our initial H-alpha selected survey show that we detect objects at a rate of 18.1 per square degree; this is 181 times higherthan the surface density of the Markarian survey and 32 times the surface density of the UCM survey. Since KISS-selected objects are primarily local, star-forming galaxies, the survey is ideal for defining a local sample of starbursting galaxies with which to compare observations at higher redshifts. Here, I will review the properties of the KISS sample and discuss many of the scientific applications of the survey, including: 1) the star formation rate density of the local universe, 2) the spectroscopic properties of the sample, and 3) the spatial distribution of emission-line galaxies.
Salzer John
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