Automated Morphological Classification of Faint Galaxies

A fully automated morphological classification system for faint galaxies is described. By means of fuzzy algebra and the subsequent application of heuristic methods, five morphological classes of galaxies, corresponding to Hubble types, are determined in the range 14 < m <= 19. The application of the classification program to 16 ESO-SERC fields near the South Galactic Pole leads to a homogeneous catalogue of more than 100 000 galaxies. From these data, the morphological type mixture is determined to be E:S0:S/Ir= 14:21:65 (%), with slight variations between areas with different degrees of clustering. The two-point correlation functions of the different morphological classes show the decreasing tendency for clustering from early to late type galaxies.