The Analysis of Counts of the Extragalactic Nebulae in Terms of a Fluctuating Density Field.

In this paper a method is developed for analyzing the counts of the extragalactic nebulae in terms of a fluctuating density field for the nebuiae in space. It is shown how such an analysis can lead to a determination of the parameters characterizing the distribution of the nebulae. It is shown that the effects of galactic absorption, which may well be appreciable, can be taken quite simply into account on the recent theory of Chandrasekhar and for the fluctuations in brightness of the Milky Way. The necessary expressions for analyzing the counts are developed for four separate cases so that the effects of a dispersion in the absolute magnitudes of the nebulae and of fluctuations in galactic absorption can be either included or neglected as the situation demands.