The Plane Quasar Survey: First Data Release

We present a sample of 305 QSO candidates having |b| < 30^, the majority with GALEX magnitudes NUV < 18. 75. To generate this sample, we apply UV-IR color selection criteria to photometric data from the Ultraviolet GAlactic Plane Survey (UVGAPS) as part of GALEX-CAUSE, the Million Quasars Catalog, Gaia DR2, and Pan-STARRS DR1. 165 of these 305 candidate UV-bright AGN (54%) have published spectroscopic redshifts from 45 different surveys, confirming them as AGN. We further obtained low-dispersion, optical, longslit spectra with the APO 3. 5-m, MDM 2. 4-m, and MDM 1. 3-m telescopes for 84 of the candidates, and confirm 86% (N = 72) as AGN, generally with z < 0. 6. These sources fill a gap in the Galactic latitude coverage of the available samples of known UV-bright QSO background probes. Along with a description of the confirmed QSO properties, we provide the fully-reduced, flux and wavelength-calibrated spectra of 84 low-latitude QSOs through the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes. Future HST/COS spectroscopy of these low-Galactic-latitude QSOs has the potential to transform our view of the Milky Way and Local Group circumgalactic medium.