|
Description
Methanol masers are often detected in regions of intense star formation. Several studies in the last decade indicate that they may even be the earliest signpost of a high-mass star-forming region. Their powerful emission makes them very good candidates for observations using both single-dish telescopes and interferometers, the latter allows detailed structural and dynamical study of these objects. We present here a catalogue of all known 6.7GHz methanol masers, discovered both by surveys that targeted possible associated objects and unbiased surveys covering a large fraction of galactic longitudes across the Galactic plane 0.5{deg}<=b<=0.5deg} for most of the regions). The 519 sources which are listed with their kinematic (galactocentric and heliocentric) distance as well as possibly associated IR objects. We find that 6.7GHz methanol masers clearly trace the molecular ring of our Galaxy, where most of the OB associations are located. The present list of masers also reports detections of other masing transitions of methanol as further information for the study of the maser phenomenon. In a further publication we will address some statistical considerations.
|
