arXiv : astro - ph / 0206197 v 1 12 Jun 2002

As part of our program to map the large-scale distribution of galaxies behind the Milky Way, we used the Parkes 210 ft (64m) radio telescope for pointed H I observations of a sample of low surface-brightness (due to heavy obscuration) spiral galaxies selected from the deep optical Zone of Avoidance (ZOA) galaxy catalog in the Hydra/Antlia region (Kraan-Korteweg 2000a). Searching a simultaneous velocity range of either 300 to 5500 kms or 300 to 10 500 km s to an rms level of typically 2− 4mJy resulted in detections in 61 of the 139 pointings, leading to a total of 66 detections (an additional detection was made in a reference position, and two other pointings revealed two and four independent signals respectively). Except for 2 strong H I emitters identified in the shallow Zone of Avoidance H I survey (Henning et al. 2000), all H I detections are new. An analysis of the properties of the observed and detected galaxies prove that pointed H I observations of highly obscured galaxies allow the tracing of a population of nearby, intrinsically large and bright spiral galaxies that otherwise would not be recovered. The new data identified a previously unrecognized nearby group at l ∼ 287. ◦5, b ∼ −9. ◦5, V ∼ 1700 kms, the continuation of the Hydra/Antlia filament on the opposite side of the Galactic plane, and helped to delimit a distinct void in the ZOA centered at 2000 kms.