A list of candidate objects for the Gallery has been continuously assembled from the literature and personal communications by JEH. Prior to this meeting, we also searched the VLA archive and the compilation of Martin (1998) for HI mapping observations of galaxies noted by us to be optically peculiar in some manner. As such, this is an entirely subjective assemblage and can in no way be considered complete. We do hope that it is representative (although it may well not be).
Using this list as a guide, we tried to contact the observers who made the observations in the early part of 2000 to see if they would consider donating FITS images or postscript files of the resulting HI maps for inclusion in the Gallery. We made another attempt to increase the number of objects in the early part of 2001. The present collection includes the results (please see §6 for acknowledgments). It amounts to 181 systems (including over 400 individually cataloged galaxies) out of our original list of ~400; there is thus much room for improvement. Additionally, there are likely a large number of objects, either published or unpublished, that we have missed entirely. We plan on actively maintaining this Gallery on the NRAO webpage (currently stored at http://www.nrao.edu/astrores/HIrogues/), and encourage observers who notice any omissions (or wish themselves to contribute an image) to contact us.
The HI maps in this compilation are mainly from two major centimeter wavelength interferometers, the Very Large Array (VLA) and the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT). A few images were taken from observations with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), but there are undounbtedly dozens of systems observed with that telescope which are not included here. Our hope is that we can remedy this in the near future, or perhaps that there will be a Northern and Southern Gallery maintained at NRAO and ATNF (a list of all galaxies observed with the ATCA is presently maintained at http://wwwatnf.atnf.csiro.au/people/bkoribal/atca_obs.html). Similarly, although no mapping observations from the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) are included so far, that instrument is likely to become another major source of images in the future. It is notable that we have included only four mapping observations made with single dish telescopes, primarily because such maps are often unavailable in machine readable form. We can expect very interesting results on the large scale gaseous distribution of local galaxies from single dish maps from the HIPASS survey with Parkes telescope (see Koribalski, these proceedings, p.439) and the Green Bank Telescope in the near future.
Many of the images presented in this Gallery have appeared in the literature. However, we are particularly and deeply grateful for those observers who have made their data available prior to publication. To ensure that these observers receive proper credit for this work, we have collected short abstracts under their names at the end of the Gallery, which include brief descriptions of these observations. If readers wish to reference these images, they should cite the abstracts, which are also referenced in the figure captions.