2019MNRAS.482.5167S

We present a homogeneous 2MASS bright galaxy catalogue at low Galactic latitudes (|b| <= 10^○_.0, called zone of avoidance, ZoA) which is complete to a Galactic extinction-corrected magnitude of K^ o^_ s_≤11^ m^_.25. It also includes galaxies in regions of high foreground extinctions [E(B - V)> 0^ m^_.95] situated at higher latitudes. This catalogue forms the basis of studies of large-scale structures, flow fields, and extinction across the ZoA and complements the ongoing 2MASS Redshift and Tully-Fisher surveys. It comprises 3763 galaxies, 70 per cent of which have at least one radial velocity measurement in the literature. The catalogue is complete up to star density levels of log N_*/deg² < 4.5 and at least for A_ K_< 0^ m^_.6 and likely as high as A_ K_= 2^ m^_.0. Thus, the ZoA in terms of bright NIR galaxies covers only 2.5-4 per cent of the whole sky. We use a diameter-dependent extinction correction to compare our sample with an unobscured, high-latitude sample. While the correction to the K_s-band magnitude is sufficient, the corrected diameters are too small by about 4 arcsec on average. The omission of applying such a diameter-dependent extinction correction may lead to a biased flow field even at intermediate extinction values as found in the 2MRS survey. A slight dependence of galaxy colour with stellar density indicates that unsubtracted foreground stars make galaxies appear bluer. Furthermore, far-infrared sources in the DIRBE/IRAS extinction maps that were not removed at low latitudes affect the foreground extinction corrections of three galaxies and may weakly affect a further estimated <=20 per cent of our galaxies.