SMAC ACO 3542 999 , the SIMBAD biblio

We present new R-band photometric data for 447 galaxies, gathered for the `Streaming Motions of Abell Clusters' (SMAC) project. The data comprise 629 individual measurements of the Fundamental Plane (FP) parameters effective radius (R_e) and surface brightness (<]µ>_e), derived from r^1/4-law profile fitting. More than a third of the galaxies were observed more than once. The photometric precision is ∼0.02mag as judged from comparisons of aperture photometry between repeat observations of galaxies. The combination X_fp=logR_e-0.33<µ>_e, which enters into the Fundamental Plane relation, has internal uncertainties of ∼0.008, corresponding to <2 per cent in estimated distance. Taken individually, the (correlated) internal errors in R_e and <µ>_e are ∼8 per cent and ∼0.12mag respectively. Comparisons with literature data constrain the external random errors to ≲5 per cent in distance (per observation), which is small in comparison to the ∼20 per cent scatter in the FP. The data will form part of a merged catalogue of FP parameters, presented in a companion paper.