NEAR-INFRARED TOMOGRAPHS OF THE GALACTIC PLANE

A new method of representing star count data is shown which has the ad vantage over traditional methods of giving clear insights into the lum inosity functions and density distributions of certain stellar compone nts of the Galaxy. When this method is applied to data from the Two-Mi cron Galactic Survey (TMGS) it is seen that the luminosity function of the spiral arms must have a significant and narrow peak at M(K) congr uent to -7.6 mag, and that these stars are located within 90 pc perpen dicular to the Galactic plane and at most 500 pc in the direction para llel to the plane, suggesting that these stars are located in the core of the spiral arms. Their density is roughly of the order of 1.4 x 10 (-5) pc(-3). The strong concentration of bright stars located within 5 00 pc of the Galactic Centre detected by the TMGS also shows a signifi cant and narrow peak in its luminosity function at M(K) = -8.8 (or bri ghter). The density distribution of these stars seems to be approximat ely Gaussian about the Galactic Centre and contains several dense dark clouds. A lower limit for the density distribution of these stars is 8.3 x 10(-6) pc(-3).