THE APM GALAXY SURVEY .5. CATALOGS OF GALAXY CLUSTERS

We describe the construction of catalogues of galaxy clusters from the APM Galaxy survey using an automated algorithm based on Abell-like se lection criteria. We investigate the effects of varying several parame ters in our selection algorithm, including the magnitude range and rad ius from the cluster centre used to estimate the cluster richnesses. W e quantify the accuracy of the photometric distance estimates by compa ring them with measured redshifts, and we investigate the stability an d completeness of the resulting catalogues. We find that the angular c orrelation functions for different cluster catalogues are in good agre ement with one another, and are also consistent with the observed ampl itude of the spatial correlation function of rich clusters.