First DENIS I-band extragalactic catalog
  This paper presents the first I-band photometric catalog of the brightest
galaxies extracted from the Deep Near Infrared Survey of the Southern Sky
(DENIS) An automatic galaxy recognition program has been developed to build
this provisional catalog. The method is based on a discriminating analysis. The
most discriminant parameter to separate galaxies from stars is proved to be the
peak intensity of an object divided by its array. Its efficiency is better than
99%. The nominal accuracy for galaxy coordinates calculated with the Guide Star
Catalog is about 6 arcseconds. The cross-identification with galaxies available
in the Lyon-Meudon Extragalactic DAtabase (LEDA) allows a calibraton of the
I-band photometry with the sample of Mathewson et Al. Thus, the catalog
contains total I-band magnitude, isophotal diameter, axis ratio, position angle
and a rough estimate of the morphological type code for 20260 galaxies. The
internal completeness of this catalog reaches magnitude $I_{lim}=14.5$, with a
photometric accuracy of $\sim 0.18m$. 25% of the Southern sky has been
processed in this study.
  This quick look analysis allows us to start a radio and spectrographic
follow-up long before the end of the survey.
