The Millennium Galaxy Catalogue: science highlights

The Millennium Galaxy Catalogue (MGC) provides a structural database comprising 10,095 well resolved galaxies drawn from a 37.5 sq degree 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 super-massive black hole mass function; galaxy bimodality; the space-density of high and low surface brightness galaxies; blue spheroids; and the B-band luminosity function. Plans to extend the MGC in area (200 sq deg), depth (KV ega = 16.5 mag), resolution (0.5″) and wavelength (u − K) are underway.