The Millennium Galaxy Catalogue: Science highlights

Authors: Simon P. Driver, Jochen Liske, Alister W. Graham

Abstract: The Millennium Galaxy Catalogue (MGC) provides a structural database comprising 10,095 well resolved galaxies drawn from a 37.5 sq. deg region of sky, with Bmgc < 20.0 mag and 96.1 per cent spectroscopic completeness. The data are being used to investigate a number of diverse topics including: the nearby galaxy merger rate (via close pairs and asymmetry); dust attenuation; bulge and disc luminosity functions; the luminosity size relations; the supermassive black hole mass function; galaxy bimodality; the space-density of high and low surface brightness galaxies; blue spheroids; and the total B-band luminosity function. Plans to extend the MGC in area (200 sq. deg), depth (KVega = 16.5 mag), resolution (0.5 arcsec) and wavelength (u-K) are underway.