Galaxies Discovered Behind the Milky Way by the Dwingeloo Obscured Galaxies Survey

Abstract

Our Galaxy blocks a significant portion of the extragalactic sky from view, hampering studies of large-scale structure. This produces an incomplete knowledge of the distribution of galaxies, and, assuming galaxies trace mass, of the gravity field. Further, just one unrecognized, nearby massive galaxy could have large influence over the Milky Way's motion with respect to the Cosmic Microwave Background. Diligent surveys in the optical and infrared wavebands can find galaxies through moderate Galactic gas and dust, but close to the Galactic Plane, only radio surveys are effective. The entire northern Zone of Avoidance is being searched at 21 cm for galaxies using the Dwingeloo 25-m telescope. A shallow search for nearby, and/or massive galaxies has been completed, yielding five objects. Two of these galaxies were previously unknown, and although they are not likely members of the Local Group, are part of the nearby Universe. A deeper search continues, which will produce a flux-limited catalog of hidden galaxies. This portion of the survey is one-third complete, and has detected about 40 objects to date. Based on present understanding of the HI mass function, the complete survey should uncover 50 - 100 galaxies.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in Astron. Journal, Tex-file plus 5 postscript figures

References in corpus (3)

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• An all-sky study of compact, isolated high-velocity clouds
• Serendipitous 2MASS Discoveries Near the Galactic Plane: A Spiral Galaxy and Two Globular Clusters
• HI Bright Galaxies in the Southern Zone of Avoidance
• The Space Density of Primordial Gas Clouds near Galaxies and Groups and their Relation to Galactic HVCs
• The HI Parkes Zone of Avoidance Survey: the Northern Extension
• New HI-detected Galaxies in the Zone of Avoidance
• The Anisotropy of the Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays
• The Arecibo L-band Feed Array Zone of Avoidance Survey I: Precursor Observations through the Inner and Outer Galaxy
• The ALFA ZOA Deep Survey: First Results
• Galaxies Detected by the Dwingeloo Obscured Galaxies Survey
• Discovery of a Nearby Low-Surface-Brightness Spiral Galaxy
• EZOA -- A catalogue of EBHIS HI detected galaxies in the northern Zone of Avoidance
• A Neighboring Dwarf Irregular Galaxy Hidden by the Milky Way
• Resolving the mystery of the dwarf galaxy HIZSS003
• The First Galaxy Cluster Discovered by the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea Survey
• The HI Parkes Zone of Avoidance Shallow Survey
• The Distance and Metallicity of the Newly Discovered, Nearby Irregular Galaxy HIZSS3
• Discovery and Follow-up of a Nearby Galaxy from the Arecibo Zone of Avoidance Survey