We only see a small fraction of the matter in the universe, but the rest
gives itself away by the impact of its gravity. Peculiar velocities have the
potential to be a powerful tool to trace this matter however previous peculiar
velocity surveys have struggled to meet their potential because of the large
errors on individual measurements, poor statistics and uneven sky coverage. The
2MASS Tully-Fisher (2MTF) survey will make use of existing high quality
rotations widths, new HI widths and 2MASS (2 Micron All-Sky Survey) photometry
to measure Tully-Fisher distances/peculiar velocities for all bright inclined
spirals in the 2MASS redshift survey (2MRS). This survey based on the 2MASS
galaxy catalog will provide a qualitatively better sample. It will provide
significant improvements in sky coverage especially near the plane of our
Galaxy which crosses the poorly understood "great attractor" region. I will
give a progress report on the 2MTF survey including a look at over 300 hours of
HI observations from the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and a report on ongoing
southern hemisphere observations with the Parke s Radio Telescope. The new
spiral I-band field (SFI++) sample is currently the best available peculiar
velocity survey for use in the local universe. I will also report on some
preliminary results from this sample.Comment: To appear in ASP Conference Series as proceedings of NRAO 50th
Anniversary Symposium, "Frontiers of Astrophysics", June 18-21, 2007, A.
Bridle, J. Condon and G. Hunt eds. 10 pages including 4 figure
