Tracing the star formation rate in the local universe: The UCM survey

A new low-dispersion objective-prism survey for low-redshift emission-line galaxies (ELG) is being carried out by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). This is a continuation of the UCM Survey which was performed by selecting the candidates via visual scans of photographic plates. A region of the sky covering 210 square degrees in nine fields near alpha = 16(h), delta = 25 degrees has been explored. An automatic procedure for selecting and analyzing the ELG candidates, fully developed by us, has been tested and applied. The final sample contains 113 candidates, i.e. 0.54 ELG per square degree. Using this procedure and several external calibrations, a large amount of information can be recovered from the spectra of the candidates registered on uncalibrated objective-prism photographic plates.