The Optical Redshift Survey

Basilio Santiago , Michael Strauss, Ofer Lahav, John Huchra

Marc Davis, Alan Dressler, Harold Corwin

The sample is 98% complete in redshift and was defined according to the following selection criteria:

- Galaxies whose apparent B band magnitudes are brighter than 14.5. We call this subset ORS-m.

OR

- Galaxies whose apparent B band diameters are larger than 1.9'. This subset we call ORS-d.

The ORS sample was drawn by applying these selection criteria to 3 major galaxy catalogs: the ESO-Uppsala Survey of the ESO(B) Atlas in declinations south of -17.5 degrees; the Uppsala General Catalogue (UGC) for declinations north of -2.5 degrees; the Extension to the Southern Galaxies Catalogue (ESGC) for the [-17.5, -2.5] declination strip.

The new redshifts were obtained in several observatories and telescopes: the 3m telescope at Lick Observatory (Univ. of California), the 1.5m telescope and the Multiple Mirror Telescope at Mt Hopkins Observatory (SAO and Univ. of Arizona), the 1.5m CTIO telescope, the 1.5m telescope at Palomar Observatory (Caltech, OCIW and Cornell Univ.) and the 2.1m telescope at Las Campanas (OCIW).

ORS provides a dense sampling of the galaxy distribution out to redshift velocities of about 8000 km/s. It is thus ideal for studying the properties of the galaxy distribution in the Local Universe, its clustering properties, galaxy segregation, main large scale structures, their shape, size and density contrast, etc. A list of ORS papers , both published and in preparation is also available.