IDENTIFYING GALAXIES IN THE ZONE OF AVOIDANCE

A set of IR color criteria was applied to sources in the IRAS Point Source Catalog at low Galactic latitudes in order to select candidate galaxies. 371 of the selected sources within a Galactic latitude range \b\ = 2°-16° were searched for H I with the Arecibo 305 m radio telescope. Twenty-six per cent (97) were detected, including 36 galaxies previously known only as IRAS sources. We provide here the H I spectra of the detected galaxies together with their observed redshifts and velocity widths. Our IR color criteria strongly discriminate against stars and are effective against cold Galactic cirrus sources with a color temperature ≲25 K, but Galactic IR sources with a color temperature between ∼25 and ∼40 K are usually not excluded, because of their similarity to extragalactic colors. Both nearby IR "normal" galaxies and galaxies with a large far-infrared-to-blue excess are selected. However, IR normal galaxies dominate our surveyed volume. Most of our H I-detected galaxies have a far-infrared luminosity between 109.4 and 1010.6L⊙(H = 75 km s-1 Mpc-1) and have an extinction-corrected photographic magnitude between ∼13 and ∼15 mag. A modified set of IR criteria, which is more appropriate and efficient for future selection of candidate galaxies, is proposed from the results of this survey.