Optical Surveys of Galaxies: Past,Present, and Future

摘要

A brief history is given of wide area optical surveys of galaxies and resulting catalogs, starting from the Shapley-Ames Catalog through POSS and CfA surveys to modern surveys. Scientific impacts of large surveys are described in terms of the complete sample, large homogeneous samples, and new discoveries. Upcoming and future ambitious surveys are also mentioned. A recent review of surveys in various wavelength regions is given by Djorgovski et al. (2012).