Unveiling a connection between large-scale structures behind the southern Milky way

Abstract

A redshift survey of galaxies located in the direction of the southern Milky Way has been carried out using the FLAIR multi-objects system on the 1.2-m UK Schmidt Telescope (UKST) at the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Australia. The galaxy sample was extracted from the LEDA and COSMOS data bases, but essentially by scanning by eye four plates of the UKST/SERC Survey in the region between the Centaurus complex and the Pavo-Indus (PI) wall. The galaxies selected have high central surface brightnesses and are distributed evenly over the whole search area. The majority of the galaxies have apparent magnitudes in the range 11.5 <J< 17. Redshifts were determined for 211 galaxies, with one additional object being found to be Galactic - a planetary nebula. A highly significant density enhancement is found in the galaxy distribution at 5000 km s-1 or 67 Mpc (H0=75 km s-1 Mpc-1). This suggests that a connection exists between the Centaurus complex and the PI wall across the zone of avoidance (ZOA) associated with the Milky Way, and as such could be one of the larger structures in the nearby Universe. © 1997 RAS.