Large groups of quasars in an ultraviolet-excess survey
type: CreativeWork
description: This thesis describes the objectives, design, construction and analysis of the Chile-UK Quasar Survey, a new wide-field spectroscopic redshift survey of ultravioletexcess quasar candidates. The main objectives of the survey are the construction of a large, homogeneous catalogue of quasars with redshifts 0.4 < z < 2.2, and the use of the catalogue to investigate the large-scale structure of the early Universe, particularly at large scales ('.-' 100 h' Mpc). The survey covers 140 deg 2 , with a 100 x 100 programme area centred at 10h40m, +50 00', and a 6?3 x 6?3 control area centred at 11h14'n, —29°00' (131950 coordinates). Quasar candidates have been selected on 16 < b :~ 20 and (Uj - b) < —0.3 from UK Schmidt Telescope photographic plates in the U and J bands digitized on the SuperCOSMOS machine at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh. The methods developed for astrometric and photometric calibration of the SuperCOSMOS data are described in detail. Positional uncertainties of Er = 0.69 arcsec r.m.s. and magnitude uncertainties of zXb 3 = 0.10 mag and Auj = 0.12 mag are achieved across the whole survey area. A function relating positional uncertainty to the efficiency of light collection for spectrographs with optical-fibre input is derived and used to show that the efficiency for this survey is > 80 per cent. Survey observations using a multi-object spectrograph with optical-fibre input on the 2.5-m du Pont telescope at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile are reported. Spectra of 4588 candidates from 54 deg 2 of the survey area have been obtained in 12 nights of observations conducted in 1996 March, 1997 March and 1998 May. Of these spectra, 3134 have been analysed, resulting in the identification of 320 quasars with redshifts in the range 0.228 < z < 2.768, and 93 narrow emission-line galaxies with redshifts in the range 0.015 < z < 0.397. The distributions of the quasar and NELG samples as functions of position, redshift, apparent magnitude, colour and luminosity are…
abstract: This thesis describes the objectives, design, construction and analysis of the Chile-UK Quasar Survey, a new wide-field spectroscopic redshift survey of ultravioletexcess quasar candidates. The main objectives of the survey are the construction of a large, homogeneous catalogue of quasars with redshifts 0.4 < z < 2.2, and the use of the catalogue to investigate the large-scale structure of the early Universe, particularly at large scales ('.-' 100 h' Mpc). The survey covers 140 deg 2 , with a 100 x 100 programme area centred at 10h40m, +50 00', and a 6?3 x 6?3 control area centred at 11h14'n, —29°00' (131950 coordinates). Quasar candidates have been selected on 16 < b :~ 20 and (Uj - b) < —0.3 from UK Schmidt Telescope photographic plates in the U and J bands digitized on the SuperCOSMOS machine at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh. The methods developed for astrometric and photometric calibration of the SuperCOSMOS data are described in detail. Positional uncertainties of Er = 0.69 arcsec r.m.s. and magnitude uncertainties of zXb 3 = 0.10 mag and Auj = 0.12 mag are achieved across the whole survey area. A function relating positional uncertainty to the efficiency of light collection for spectrographs with optical-fibre input is derived and used to show that the efficiency for this survey is > 80 per cent. Survey observations using a multi-object spectrograph with optical-fibre input on the 2.5-m du Pont telescope at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile are reported. Spectra of 4588 candidates from 54 deg 2 of the survey area have been obtained in 12 nights of observations conducted in 1996 March, 1997 March and 1998 May. Of these spectra, 3134 have been analysed, resulting in the identification of 320 quasars with redshifts in the range 0.228 < z < 2.768, and 93 narrow emission-line galaxies with redshifts in the range 0.015 < z < 0.397. The distributions of the quasar and NELG samples as functions of position, redshift, apparent magnitude, colour and luminosity are…
author: Newman, Peter Raymond
language: en
keywords: F510 - Astrophysics
date published: 1999-10
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:36:13Z
provider: University of Central Lancashire
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Central Lancashire

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17030/uclan.thesis.00020658