GALAXIES DISCOVERED BEHIND THE MILKY-WAY BY THE DWINGELOO OBSCURED GALAXIES SURVEY

Our Galaxy blocks a significant portion of the extragalactic sky from view, hampering studies of large-scale structure. This produces an inc omplete knowledge of the distribution of galaxies and, assuming that g alaxies trace mass, of the gravity field. Further, just one unrecogniz ed, nearby massive galaxy could have a large influence over the Milky Way's motion with respect to the cosmic microwave background. Diligent surveys in the optical and infrared wave bands can find galaxies thro ugh moderate Galactic gas and dust, but close to the Galactic plane on ly radio surveys are effective. The entire northern zone of avoidance is being searched at 21 cm for galaxies using the Dwingeloo 25 m teles cope. A shallow search for nearby and/or massive galaxies has been com pleted, yielding five objects. Two of these galaxies were previously u nknown, and although they are not likely members of the Local Group, t hey are part of the nearby universe. A deeper search continues, which will produce a flux-limited catalog of hidden galaxies. This portion o f the survey is one-third complete and has detected about 40 objects t o date. Based on present understanding of the H I mass function, the c omplete survey should uncover 50-100 galaxies.