The Las Campanas Redshift Survey

Abstract

The Las Campanas Redshift Survey (LCRS) consists of 26,418 redshifts of galaxies selected from a CCD-based catalog obtained in the R band. The survey covers over 700 deg^2^ in six strips, each 1.5^deg^ x 80^deg^, three each in the north and south Galactic caps. The median redshift in the survey is about 30,000 km s^-1^. Essential features of the galaxy selection and redshift measurement methods are described and tabulated here. These details are important for subsequent analysis of the LCRS data. Two-dimensional representations of the redshift distributions reveal many repetitions of voids, on the scale of about 5000 km s^-1^, sharply bounded by large walls of galaxies as seen in nearby surveys. Statistical investigations of the mean galaxy properties and of clustering on the large scale are reported elsewhere. These include studies of the luminosity function, power spectrum in two and three dimensions, correlation function, pairwise velocity distribution, identification of large-scale structures, and a group catalog. The LCRS redshift catalog will be made available to interested investigators at an internet web site and in archival form as an AAS CD-ROM.