The K-band luminosity function of nearby field galaxies

We present a measurement of the K-band luminosity function (LF) of field galaxies obtained from near-infrared imaging of a sample of 345 galaxies selected from the Stromlo-APM Redshift Survey. The LF is well-fitted over the ten magnitude range -26 < M_K < -16 by a Schechter function with parameters alpha = -1.16 +- 0.19, M* = -23.58 +- 0.42, phi* = 0.012 +- 0.008 Mpc^-3 assuming a Hubble constant of H_0 = 100 km/s/Mpc. We have also estimated the LF for two subsets of galaxies subdivided by the equivalent width of the Halpha emission line at EW(Halpha) = 10A. There is no significant difference in LF shape between the two samples, although there is a hint (~1 sigma significance) that emission line galaxies (ELGs) have M* roughly one magnitude fainter than non-ELGs. Contrary to the optical LF, there is no difference in faint-end slope alpha between the two samples.Comment: 10 pages, 9 embedded figures, MNRAS, in press. Minor changes to correspond to accepted versio

The APM Bright Galaxy Catalogue

The APM Bright Galaxy Catalogue lists positions, magnitudes, shapes and morphological types for 14,681 galaxies brighter than $b_J$ magnitude 16.44 over a 4,180 square degree area of the southern sky. Galaxy and stellar images have been located from glass copy plates of the United Kingdom Schmidt Telescope (UKST) IIIaJ sky survey using the Automated Photographic Measuring (APM) facility in Cambridge, England. The majority of stellar images are rejected by the regularity of their image surface brightness profiles. Remaining images are inspected by eye on film copies of the survey material and classed as stellar, multiple stellar, galaxy, merger or noise. Galaxies are further classified as elliptical, lenticular, spiral, irregular or uncertain. The 180 survey fields are put onto a uniform photometric system by comparing the magnitudes of galaxies in the overlap regions between neighbouring plates. The magnitude zero-point, photometric uniformity and photographic saturation are checked with CCD photometry. Finally, the completeness and reliability of the catalogue is assessed using various internal tests and by comparing with several independently constructed galaxy catalogues.Comment: 52 pages, uuencoded, gzipped tar archive, includes all figures. The catalogue data is available from ftp://adc.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/adc/archives/journal_tables/MNRAS/278/1025

UBR charge-coupled device photometry of Stromlo-APM galaxies

We present CCD photometry in the Johnson-Kron-Cousins UBR bands for a sample of 320 galaxies selected from the Stromlo-APM Redshift Survey. We use this CCD data to estimate the galaxy luminosity function in the U, B, R and b_J bands, finding consistent results with earlier work. Fainter galaxies serendipitously observed on our CCD frames allow a check of the photometric calibration of the APM Galaxy Survey. We find no evidence of any significant scale error in the APM magnitudes.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure