**Table 5:** Number of detected maser galaxies per luminosity and distance interval (see Table 4)^a.
log ( $L_{\rm H_2O}$ )	Distance
( $L_{\odot}$ )	(Mpc)
	<2	2-6	6-21	21-65	65-210	210-650
-1.0-(-0.1)	2	1	2	-	-	-
0.0-0.9	-	1	4	-	-	-
1.0-1.9	-	2	2	12	4	-
2.0-2.9	-	-	4	7	7	-
3.0-3.9	-	-	-	-	3	1

^a In italics: expected highest distance bin where sources of a given luminosity should still be detectable. Because this distance bin contains a much larger volume than the nearer ones, most masers are expected to be there. For each of the galaxies in Table 4 the total integrated 22 GHz H₂O luminosity was taken. This amounts to an integrated single-dish flux density corresponding to $\sim$ 8 $L_{\odot}$ in the case of NGC 2146, where VLA data from Tarchi et al. (2002b) revealed two $\sim$ 1 $L_{\odot}$ masers (see Table 4).

Source LaTeX | All tables | In the text

	1 Introduction and sample selection
	2 Observations
	3 Results
	4 Discussion
	5 Conclusions
	References