An analysis of the distribution of faint galaxies at the South Galactic Pole

The distribution of faint galaxies in a region of 30 square degrees of sky near the South Galactic Pole is analyzed, on the basis of deep photographic plates from the Schmidt Telescope. The limiting magnitude of the sample was 21.5 B mag. The sample was obtained using the COSMOS automatic plate scanning machine. In order to examine the distribution of the galaxies in the sample, two techniques were used: a two-point angular correlation function; and an algorithm for the detection of filaments in the distribution. The angular correlation analysis showed that: (1) the scale at which the correlation function went to negative values (about 8/h Mpc) was smaller than the 'break-point' identified by Peebles and Groth (1975) for the Lick catalog; and (2) the apparent regular periodicity of the function appeared to be consistent with a cellular distribution similar to the one identified by Doroshkevich et al. (1978). The results of the analysis also showed no evidence of filamentary effects in the distribution of the galaxies. An isoplethal plot representing the distribution of the 40889 galaxies in the sample is provided.