A&A Supplement series, Vol. 127, February I 1998, 367-395
Received February 25; accepted May 22, 1997
C.K. Young 
and M.J. Currie 
Send offprint request: C.K. Young by e-mailing c.young1@physics.oxford.ac.uk
Beijing Astronomical Observatory,
Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Beijing 100080, China
Department of Physics, University of Oxford,
Nuclear and Astrophysics Laboratory, Keble Road,
Oxford OX1 3RH, UK
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot,
Oxfordshire OX11 0QX, UK
We present a new catalogue of galaxies in the direction of the Virgo Cluster's
core: the Virgo Photometry Catalogue (VPC)
.
This catalogue contains 1180
galaxies (including background objects) within a 23 square-degree area of the
sky centred on
and
. The VPC galaxy
sample comprises of non-stellar objects brighter than 
; the
completeness limits being 
for the northern half of the
survey area and 
for the southern half.
Independently-calibrated
photographic surface photometry is presented for over 1000 galaxies in the U,
and 
bands.
Parameters listed for catalogued galaxies include: equatorial coordinates, morphological types,
surface-brightness profile parameters (which preserve the majority of the
original surface photometry information),
U, & isophotal magnitudes, and [transformed] B
total magnitudes, 
and 
equal-area and total colours, apparent
angular radii, ellipticities, position angles, heliocentric radial velocities
and alternative designations.
All total magnitudes and total colours are extrapolated
according to a new system denoted t in order to distinguish it from
the T system already in use.
The VPC is based primarily on four (one U, two and one )
UK-Schmidt plates, all of which were digitised using the Royal Observatory
Edinburgh's (ROE) COSMOS measuring machine.
All magnitudes, colours and surface-brightness parameters are
derived from numerical integrations of segmented plate-scan data,
except for (in 109 cases) saturated or (in 51 cases) inextricably-merged
images; our segmentation software being able to cope with the vast
majority of image mergers.
keywords: galaxies: clusters: individual: Virgo -- catalogues -- galaxies: fundamental parameters -- galaxies: photometry