Low-Surface-Brightness Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. I. Search Method and Test Sample

In this paper we present results of a pilot study to use imaging data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to search for low-surface-brightness (LSB) galaxies. For our pilot study we use a test sample of 92 galaxies from the catalog of Impey et al. (1996) distributed over 93 SDSS fields of the Early Data Release (EDR). Many galaxies from the test sample are either LSB or dwarf galaxies. To deal with the SDSS data most effectively a new photometry software was created, which is described in this paper. We present the results of the selection algorithms applied to these 93 EDR fields. Two galaxies from the Impey et al. test sample are very likely artifacts, as confirmed by follow-up imaging. With our algorithms, we were able to recover 87 of the 90 remaining test sample galaxies, implying a detection rate of $\sim$96.5%. The three missed galaxies fall too close to very bright stars or galaxies. In addition, 42 new galaxies with parameters similar to the test sample objects were found in these EDR fields (i.e., $\sim$47% additional galaxies). We present the main photometric parameters of all identified galaxies and carry out first statistical comparisons. We tested the quality of our photometry by comparing the magnitudes for our test sample galaxies and other bright galaxies with values from the literature. All these tests yielded consistent results. We briefly discuss a few unusual galaxies found in our pilot study, including an LSB galaxy with a two-component disk and ten new giant LSB galaxies.Comment: 36 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication by AJ, some figures were bitmapped to reduce the siz

Strong emission line H II galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. I. Catalog of DR1 objects with oxygen abundances from Te measurements measurements

We present the first edition of the SDSS H II galaxies with Oxygen abundances Catalog (SHOC), which is a listing of strong emission-line galaxies (ELGs) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Oxygen abundances have been obtained with the classic Te method. We describe the method exploiting the SDSS database to construct this sample. The selection procedures are described and discussed in detail, as well as some problems encountered in the process of deriving reliable emission line parameters. The method was applied to the SDSS Data Release 1 (DR1). We present 612 SDSS emission-line galaxies (624 separate SDSS targets in total), for which the oxygen abundances 12+log(O/H) have rms uncertainties ‚‚lt;=0.20 dex. The subsample of 263 ELGs (272 separate SDSS targets) have an uncertainty ‚‚lt;=0.10 dex, while 459 ELGs (470 separate SDSS targets) have an uncertainty ‚‚lt;=0.15 dex. The catalog includes the main parameters of all selected ELGs, the intensities and equivalent widths of hydrogen and oxygen emission lines, as well as oxygen abundances with their uncertainties. The information on the presence of Wolf-Rayet blue and/or red bumps in 109 galaxies is also included. With the use of combined g, r, i SDSS images we performed visual morphological classification of all SHOC galaxies. Four hundred sixty-one galaxies (~75%) are classified as confident or probable blue compact galaxies (BCG/BCG?), 78 as irregular ones, 20 as low surface brightness galaxies (LSBG), 10 as obviously interacting, and 43 as spiral galaxies. In creating the catalog, 30 narrow-line active galactic nuclei and 69 LINERs were also identified; these are also presented apart of the main catalog. We outline briefly the content of the catalog, and the prospects of its use for statistical studies of the star formation and chemical evolution issues. Some of these studies will be presented in the forthcoming paper. Finally, we show that the method presented by Kniazev et al. for calculating O+/H+ using intensities of the [O II] ‚‚lambda;‚‚lambda;7320, 7330 lines for SDSS emission-line spectra in the absence of [O II] ‚‚lambda;3727 line appears to yield reliable results over a wide range of studied oxygen abundances: 7.10‚‚lt;12+log(O/H)‚‚lt;8.5