A UV-selected mini-survey of field galaxies at 200 nm

A FUV-selected spectroscopic sample is being built from a high galactic latitude field centered near the Abell 2111 cluster at mUV⩽19 with the FOCA balloon-borne telescope. Among the 102 galaxies with spectroscopic observations, 83 lay outside the A2111 redshift range, which corresponds to a high projected density of actively star-forming objects. The z-distribution shows a well developed tail for z>0.3. A tentative 200 nm local luminosity function is computed, relevant to comparisons with rest-frame FUV luminosity functions at high redshifts derived from observations selected at visible wavelengths. The local luminosity density at 200 nm is found at 6×1018 W Hz−1 Mpc−3, suggesting a local star formation rate at least twice as high as that derived from Hα.