The fornax spectroscopic survey: The number of unresolved compact galaxies

We describe a sample of 13 bright (18.5 < B-J < 20.1), compact galaxies at low redshift (0.05 < z < 0.21) behind the Fornax Cluster. These galaxies ar e unresolved on UK Schmidt sky survey plates, and so they would be missing from most galaxy catalogs compiled from this material. The objects were fou nd during initial observations of The Fornax Spectroscopic Survey. This pro ject is using the Two-degree Field spectrograph on the Anglo-Australian Tel escope to obtain spectra for a complete sample of all 14,000 objects, stell ar and nonstellar, with 16.5 < B-J < 19.7, in a 12 deg(2) area centered on the Fornax Cluster of galaxies. The surface density of compact galaxies wit h magnitudes 16.5 < B-J < 19.7 is 7 +/- 3 deg(-2), representing 2.8% +/- 1. 6% of all local (z < 0.2) galaxies to this limit. There are 12 +/- 3 deg(-2 ) with 16.5 < B-J < 20.2. They are luminous (-21.5 < M-B < -18.0, for H-o = 50 km s(-1) Mpc(-1)), and most have strong emission lines (H alpha equival ent widths of 40-200 Angstrom) and small sizes typical of luminous H II gal axies and compact narrow emission line galaxies. Four out of 13 have red co lors and early-type spectra, and so they are unlikely to have been detected in any previous surveys.