National University Bright Quasar Survey in Optical ( SNUQSO ) I : First Phase Observations and Results

We present results from the first phase of the Seoul National University Bright Quasar Survey in Optical (SNUQSO) as well as its basic observational setup. Previous and current large area surveys have been successful in identifying many quasars, but they could have missed bright quasars due to their survey design. In order to help complete the census of bright quasars, we have performed spectroscopic observations of new bright quasar candidates selected from various methods based on optical colors, near-infrared colors, radio, and X-ray data. In 2005/2006, we observed 55 bright quasar candidates using the Bohyunsan Optical Echelle Spectrograph (BOES) on the 1.8 m telescope at the Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory in Korea. We identify 14 quasars/Seyferts from our observation, including an optically bright quasar with i = 14.98 mag at z = 0.092 (SDSS J003236.59-091026.2). Non-quasar/Seyfert objects are found to be mostly stars, among which there are 5 M-type stars and one cataclysmic variable. Our result shows that there still exist bright quasars to be discovered. However, at the same time, we conclude that finding new bright quasars in high Galactic latitude regions is very challenging and that the existing compilation of bright quasars is nearly complete in the northern hemisphere. Subject headings: galaxies: active galaxies: nuclei techniques: spectroscopic quasars: individual (SNUQSO J003236.59-091026.2) quasars: emission lines surveys Department of Physics and Astronomy, FPRD, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-747, Korea Department of Physics, Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut Street Philadelphia, PA 19104 Institute for Computational Cosmology, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK Korea Institute for Advanced Study, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul 130-722, Korea Kyungpook National University, Daegu 702-701, Korea [email protected] [email protected]