A 20 centimeter survey of compact sources in the northern Galactic plane

A VLA survey of the Galactic plane at 20 cm in the longitude range 20 - 120 deg for Galactic latitudes absolute value of b less than or equal to 0.8 deg has resulted in a catalog of 1992 discrete radio sources. The survey has revealed a strong concentration of low-latitude objects within 50 deg of the Galactic center with a scale height of about 25 pc. This extreme Population I subset of the catalog is dominated by sources with diameters between 3 and 20 arcsec; most are associated with strong far-infrared sources and are likely to be compact and ultracompact H II regions. Other sources of particular interest and the properties of the various radio source populations represented in the survey are discussed.