The Hamburg Quasar Survey. III. Further new bright quasars

We present a further list of 274 bright QSOs, 106 (195) of which have B<~ 17 (17.5), selected semiautomatically from objective prism plates taken with the Calar Alto 80 cm Schmidt telescope. All QSOs have been confirmed by follow-up spectroscopy and we display their flux-calibrated spectra. We also discuss the completeness of our search technique and demonstrate that for 0.1 <= z < 3.2 and B <= 17 we have been able to recover roughly 85% of known QSOs; 10% were lost due to overlaps while 5% were lost during the selection process. In particular the bright z >= 2 QSOs (17 with B <~ 17) are potential targets for follow-up spectroscopy both at high-resolution from the ground and in the ultraviolet from space. Based on observations obtained at the German-Spanish Astronomical Center, Calar Alto, Spain, operated by the Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Heidelberg, jointly with the Spanish National Commission for Astronomy and at the European Southern Observatory, La Silla, Chile. Table 3 is only available in electronic form at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/Abstract.html. Figure 3 is only available at the journal http://www.edpsciences.com.