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Description
We present a homogeneous 2MASS bright galaxy catalogue at low Galactic latitudes (|b|<=10.0{deg}, called Zone of Avoidance) which is complete to a Galactic extinction-corrected magnitude of KS^o^<=11.25m. It also includes galaxies in regions of high foreground extinctions (E(B-V)>0.95mag) situated at higher latitudes. This catalogue forms the basis of studies of large-scale structures, flow fields and extinction across the ZoA and complements the ongoing 2MASS Redshift and Tully-Fisher surveys. It comprises 3763 galaxies, 70% of which have at least one radial velocity measurement in the literature. The catalogue is complete up to star density levels of logN*/deg^2^<4.5 and at least for A(K)<0.6mag and likely as high as A(K)=20mag. Thus the ZoA in terms of bright NIR galaxies covers only 2.5-4% of the whole sky. We use a diameter-dependent extinction correction to compare our sample with an unobscured, high-latitude sample. While the correction to the Ks -band magnitude is sufficient, the corrected diameters are too small by about 4" on average. The omission of applying such a diameter-dependent extinction correction may lead to a biased flow field even at intermediate extinction values as found in the 2MRS survey. A slight dependence of galaxy colour with stellar density indicates that unsubtracted foreground stars make galaxies appear bluer. Furthermore, far-infrared sources in the DIRBE/IRAS extinction maps that were not removed at low latitudes affect the foreground extinction corrections of three galaxies and may weakly affect a further estimated ~20% of our galaxies.
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