The Star Formation Rate of the Local Universe from the KPNO International Spectroscopic Survey

Abstract

The KPNO International Spectroscopic Survey (KISS) is a wide-field survey for extragalactic emission-line objects being carried out with the Burrell Schmidt at Kitt Peak. The critical difference between this survey and classical objective-prism surveys for active galaxies is the use of a CCD detector which allows us to probe to much fainter magnitudes than previous photographic surveys. We have discovered 1126 emission-line galaxy (ELG) candidates in our H-alpha selected survey area of ~68 square degrees. We have used these ELGs to derive the local H-alpha luminosity density and the star formation rate density of the local universe and find values somewhat higher than those reported by Gallego et al.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, style files included; to appear in "Dwarf Galaxies and Cosmology", eds. Thuan et al., Editions Frontiere