7 Summary

We have presented medium-resolution spectroscopy observations of 97 blue compact galaxies. These BCGs cover a range in absolute blue magnitude -21.9 < M_B < -14.0; 83 BCGs have M_B < -17 mag. The spectra were obtained with the Beijing Astronomical Observatory 2.16 m telescope, with spectral resolution (FWHM) of about 10 Å and spectral range 3580 Å-7600 Å. The spectrophotometry is expected to be accurate to 10%.

Based on the emission and absorption lines, we measured the recession velocities of the sample galaxies. Most galaxies in the sample have velocities below 9000 km s^-1; the error in recession velocity is less than 67 km s^-1.

The majority of the sample galaxies are dominated by active star formation; 74 of them have typical H  II regions spectra, the others are Seyfert galaxies and absorption line galaxies.

Measurement of the spectral line strengths and the results of the spectral analysis of these galaxies will be presented in the next paper of this series. We will use these data to understand the star formation history, the physical parameters governing the burst mode of star formation and chemical evolution in blue compact galaxies.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Dr. A. Weiss and Dr. S. Charlot for their helpful comments, constructive suggestions, and hard work of English revision for this paper. The referee Dr. D. Kunth is thanked for many useful suggestions. We also thank the BAO Chinese 2.16 m Telescope time allocation committee for their support of this programme and to the staff and telescope operators of the Xinglong Station of the Beijing Astronomical Observatory for their support. Especially we would like to thank Dr. J. Y. Wei and Dr. X. J. Jiang for their active cooperation that enabled all of the observations to go through smoothly. This work is supported by the Chinese National Natural Science Foundation (CNNSF 10073009). Dr. X. Kong has been financed by the Special Funds for Major State Basic Research Projects of China and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany.