DISTRIBUTION OF GALAXIES IN THE SOUTHERN GALACTIC CAP

In this paper we combine recent observations carried out in the southern galactic hemisphere in the declination range - 17.5°≤δ≤ - 2.5°, with those available from the southern galactic section of the original CfA Redshift Survey and the Southern Sky Redshift Survey (SSRS). The whole dataset allows us to investigate the spatial distribution of galaxies over a contiguous area of 3.13 sr of the Southern Galactic Cap (SGC), below galactic latitude - 30°, down to a magnitude limit of mB(0) ≈14.5. In constructing the SGC sample we have used Zwicky magnitudes whenever available, magnitudes estimated from linear magnitude-diameter relations in the region of the SSRS, and MCG magnitudes with an offset of 0.53 mag in the equatorial region. Compared to the CfA Redshift Survey in the Northern Galactic Cap and the SSRS, the SGC sample covers 1.7 times as much area of the sky, and avoids the core of the Local Supercluster. The large-scale structure that we find is similar to that seen in previous surveys; bright galaxies are distributed on surfaces which intersect at sharp corners and nearly surround voids which are almost empty of galaxies. The largest voids seen have dimensions up to 60h-1 Mpc (H0 = 100h km/s/Mpc) with the indication that some surfaces may have an even larger extent.