A 20 CENTIMETER SURVEY OF COMPACT SOURCES IN THE NORTHERN GALACTIC PLANE

A VLA survey of the Galactic plane at 20 cm in the longitude range -20° ≤ l ≤ 120° for Galactic latitudes |b| ≤ 0°.8 has resulted in a catalog of 1992 discrete radio sources. The survey has revealed a strong concentration of low-latitude objects within 50° of the Galactic center with a scale height of ∼25 pc. This extreme Population I subset of the catalog is dominated by sources with diameters between 3 and 20 arcsec; most are associated with strong far-infrared sources and are likely to be compact and ultracompact H II regions. We briefly discuss other sources of particular interest and comment on the properties of the various radio source populations represented in the survey.