A COMPLETE SAMPLE OF EXTRA-GALACTIC RADIO-SOURCES AT 1-JY AT 408-MHZ .2. THE OPTICAL OBSERVATIONS

This is the second paper in a series investigating the properties of a complete sample of 59 B2 radio sources with flux densities between 1 and 2 Jy at 408 MHz. Here we present the results of a deep optical survey of the fields of 47 of these sources which are unidentified or have faint identifications on the National Geographic-Palomar Sky Survey (PSS). The observations were made with the Hale 5-m telescope using a charge-coupled device (CCD) detector and reach a limiting magnitude of mr ∼ 23. The proportion of the sample with identifications brighter than mr = 23 is estimated to be ∼ 80 per cent. The apparent magnitude distribution of galaxies peaks between 19 and 20 mag, while the distribution of QSOs (∼ 24 per cent of the total) reaches a maximum between 20 and 21 mag. Some of the faintest identifications are possibly close associations of galaxies in the cores of distant clusters. The giant 'classical double' 0854 + 39 is the best example of this type. © 1982 Royal Astronomical Society. Provided by the NASA Astrophysics Data System.