VLBI Observations of a Complete Sample of Radio Galaxies. I. Snapshot Data

A complete sample of 26 radio galaxies has been selected from the B2 and 3CR catalogs, in order to study the properties of radio galaxies on the milliarcsecond scale. As a first step, we obtained VLBI snapshot observations for 16 galaxies, in order to have an indication of the size and flux density of the milliarcsecond component. We present here the results of these observations. All but one galaxy were detected. In most cases, the total flux density detected in the VLBI data is comparable (> 80%) to the flux density present in the arcsecond core. More than half the sources show indication of the presence of extended structure.