A catalogue of galaxies behind the southern Milky Way^*

II. The Crux and Great Attractor regions ( 289° to 338°)

¹ Dept. of Astronomy, University of Cape Town, Private Bag, Rondebosch 7700, South Africa
² Dept. de Astronomía, Universidad de Guanajuato, Apartado Postal 144, Guanajuato, GTO 36000, Mexico

Corresponding author: P. A. Woudt, pwoudt@artemisia.ast.uct.ac.za

Received: 11 May 2001
Accepted: 15 October 2001

Abstract

In this second paper of the catalogue series of galaxies behind the southern Milky Way, we report on the deep optical galaxy search in the Crux region ( and ) and the Great Attractor region ( and ). The galaxy catalogues are presented, a brief description of the galaxy search given, as well as a discussion on the distribution and characteristics of the uncovered galaxies. A total of 8182 galaxies with major diameters were identified in this ~850 square degree area: 3759 galaxies in the Crux region and 4423 galaxies in the Great Attractor region. Of the 8182 galaxies, 229 (2.8% ) were catalogued before in the optical (3 in radio) and 251 galaxies have a reliable (159), or likely (92) cross-identification in the IRAS Point Source Catalogue (3.1% ). A number of prominent overdensities and filaments of galaxies are identified. They are not correlated with the Galactic foreground extinction and hence indicative of extragalactic large-scale structures. Redshifts obtained at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) for 518 of the newly catalogued galaxies in the Crux and Great Attractor regions (Fairall et al. [CITE]; Woudt et al. [CITE]) confirm distinct voids and clusters in the area here surveyed. With this optical galaxy search, we have reduced the width of the optical "Zone of Avoidance" for galaxies with extinction-corrected diameters larger than 1.3 arcmin from extinction levels to : the remaining optical Zone of Avoidance is now limited by (see Fig. 16).