Hunting for Supermassive Black Holes in Nearby Galaxies with the
  Hobby-Eberly Telescope
  We have conducted an optical long-slit spectroscopic survey of 1022 galaxies
using the 10m Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) at McDonald Observatory. The main
goal of the HET Massive Galaxy Survey (HETMGS) is to find nearby galaxies that
are suitable for black hole mass measurements. In order to measure accurately
the black hole mass, one should kinematically resolve the region where the
black hole dominates the gravitational potential. For most galaxies, this
region is much less than an arcsecond. Thus, black hole masses are best
measured in nearby galaxies with telescopes that obtain high-spatial
resolution. The HETMGS focuses on those galaxies predicted to have the largest
sphere-of-influence, based on published stellar velocity dispersions or the
galaxy fundamental plane. To ensure coverage over galaxy types, the survey
targets those galaxies across a face-on projection of the fundamental plane. We
present the sample selection and resulting data products from the long-slit
observations, including central stellar kinematics and emission line ratios.
The full dataset, including spectra and resolved kinematics, is available
online. Additionally, we show that the current crop of black hole masses are
highly biased towards dense galaxies and that especially large disks and low
dispersion galaxies are under-represented. This survey provides the necessary
groundwork for future systematic black hole mass measurement campaigns.
