Introduction

Sources common to 2dFGRS and deep radio surveys (NVSS,FIRST,SUMSS)¹comprise large samples of local, low-to-moderate power radio sources. The sheer number of objects (in the completed 2dFGRS, we expect 4000 galaxies in common with NVSS) and the homogeneity of the spectra will allow us to make statistical studies of sub-populations among the radio sources, so revealing a much clearer picture of their properties (and perhaps identifying rare or new classes of objects). Most importantly, the overlap between 2dFGRS and NVSS provides a sample from which to derive the local radio luminosity function as 50% of these galaxies lie at z < 0.1 (Sadler et al. 1999). A future paper will derive this local radio luminosity function and discuss the contributions of individual populations. This paper reports the results of an emission-line diagnostic analysis of the preliminary sample of 2dFGRS-NVSS galaxies, checking these against the intial `eyeball' classifications of Sadler et al. (1999). Throughout this paper values of H₀ = 75 km s^-1 Mpc^-1 and =1.0 are used.

© Copyright Astronomical Society of Australia 1997