catalog of galaxies in the central regions of the VC. The catalog is based on COSMOS scans of one U plate, two B$_J$ plates, and one R$_C$ plate, all obtained with the UK Schmidt telescope. The plates were photometrically calibrated and objects were extracted automatically, with stars and galaxies separated by an automatic algorithm. The VPC provides an impartial survey of galaxies in the region of interest for the present study, which reaches to B$_J\approx$19 mag, thus it is somewhat shallower but comparable in depth with the stars from the USNO-A2.0 catalog. The area covered by the VPC covers 23 square degrees and is centered on (1950) 12:26 +13:08. The average galaxy surface density is therefore 49 galaxies/square degree, considerably more than that of the VCC.

We attempted to detect total extinction effects on the VPC galaxies by limiting the analysis to regions with high FIR emission and comparing these with similar analyses in the direction of regions with lower FIR emission. Four parallerogram-shaped fields were selected, marked A, B, C, and D on Figure 4. Fields C and D are used to determine the nature of the galaxy population in the general region of the VR. Field A could 