Galaxies Behind the Deepest Extinction Layer of the Southern Milky Way

Renee Kraan-Korteweg (Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico),
Bärbel Koribalski (ATNF), and Sebastian Juraszek (University of Sydney, ATNF)

(1998) in Proceedings of the ESO/ATNF Workshop ``Looking Deep in the Southern Sky'',
eds. R. Morganti & W. Couch, Springer-Verlag, submitted

Abstract. About 25% of the optical extragalactic sky is obscured by the dust and stars of our Milky Way. Dynamically important structures might still lie hidden in this zone. Various approaches are presently being employed to uncover the galaxy distribution in this Zone of Avoidance (ZOA). Results as well as the different limitations and selection effects from these multi-wavelengths explorations are being discussed. Galaxies within the innermost part of the Milky Way - typically at a foreground obscuration in the blue of AB > 5m and |b| < 5 degrees - remain particularly difficult to uncover except for HI-surveys: the Galaxy is fully transparent at the 21cm line and HI-rich galaxies are easy to trace. We will report here on the first results from the systematic blind HI-search (v < 12700 km/s) in the southern Zone of Avoidance which is currently being conducted with the Parkes Multibeam Receiver. \end{abstract} see also:


bkoribal@atnf.csiro.au