The QUEST RR Lyrae Survey: III. The Low Galactic Latitude Catalogue
  We present results for the QUEST RR Lyrae Survey at low galactic latitude,
conducted entirely with observations obtained with the QUEST mosaic camera and
the 1.0/1.5m J\"urgen Stock Schmidt telescope at the National Observatory of
Venezuela. The survey spans an area of 476 sq. deg on the sky, with multi-epoch
observations in the V, R and I photometric bands for 6.5x10^6 stars in the
galactic latitude range 30<= b(deg) <=+25, in a direction close to the Galactic
Anticenter 190<= l(deg)<= 230. The variability survey has a typical number of
30 observations per object in V and I and ~25 in R, with up to ~120-150 epochs
in V and I and up to ~100 in R in the best sampled regions. The completeness
magnitudes of the survey are V=R=18.5 mag, and I=18.0 mag. We identified 211 RR
Lyrae stars, 160 bona fide stars of type ab and 51 candidates of type c, ours
being the first deep RR Lyrae survey conducted at low galactic latitude.The
completeness of the RR Lyrae survey was estimated in >95 per cent and ~85 per
cent for RRab and RRc stars respectively. Photometric metallicities were
computed based on the light curves and individual extinctions calculated from
minimum light colours for each RRab star. Distances were obtained with typical
errors ~7 per cent. The RR Lyrae survey simultaneously spans a large range of
heliocentric distances 0.5<= R_hel(kpc)<=40 and heights above the plane
-15<=z(kpc)<=+20, with well known completeness across the survey area, making
it an ideal set for studying the struc ture of the Galactic thick disk.
