A UKST survey of blue objects towards the galactic centre - a search for early-type stars

We have begun a search for early-type stars towards the galactic centre which are potentially young objects situated within the inner few kiloparsecs of the disk. U and V (or I) band photographic photometry from the UK Schmidt Telescope has been obtained to identify the bluest candidates in nineteen Schmidt fields (centred close to the galactic centre). We have spectroscopically observed these targets for three fields with the FLAIR multi-fibre system to determine their spectral types. In particular; ten early B-type stars have been identified and equivalent width measurements of their Balmer and HeI lines have been used to estimate atmospheric parameters. These early-type objects have magnitudes in the range 11.5 less than or equal to V less than or equal to 16.0, and our best estimates of their distance (given probable highly variable reddening in this direction together with errors in the plate photometry) suggest that some of them originated close to (i.e R-g