2004MNRAS.347..137P

We present results from a pilot study of a new wide-field, multicolour (BVR) CCD imaging project, designed to examine galaxy evolution along large-scale filaments that connect clusters of galaxies at intermediate redshifts (0.07 < z < 0.20). Our pilot data set is based on 0.56 deg² of observations targeted on Abell 1079 and Abell 1084 using the Wide Field Imager on the Anglo-Australian Telescope. We describe our data reduction pipeline and show that our photometric error is 0.04 mag. By selecting galaxies that lie on the colour-magnitude relation of the two clusters we verify the existence of a low-density (∼3-4 Mpc^–2) filament population, conjoining them at a distance of >3r_Abell from either cluster. By applying a simple field correction, we characterize this filament population by examining their colour distribution on a (V -R)-(B -V) plane. We confirm the galaxian filament detection at a 7.5 σ level using a cut at M_V-18 and we discuss their broad properties.