Galaxy number counts from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey commissioning data

We present bright galaxy number counts in five broad bands (u', g', r', i', z') from imaging data taken during the commissioning phase of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The counts are derived from two independent stripes of imaging scans along the celestial equator, one each toward the northern and the southern Galactic cap, covering about 230 and 210 deg(2), respectively. A careful study is made to verify the reliability of the photometric catalog. For galaxies brighter than r* = 16, the catalog produced by automated software is examined against eye inspection of all objects. Statistically meaningful results on the galaxy counts are obtained in the magnitude range 12 less than or equal to r* less than or equal to 21, using a sample of 900,000 galaxies. The counts from the two stripes differ by about 30% at magnitudes brighter than r* = 15.5, consistent with a local 2 sigma fluctuation due to large-scale structure in the galaxy distribution. The shape of the number counts-magnitude relation brighter than r* = 16 is well characterized by N proportional to 10(0.6m), the relation expected for a homogeneous galaxy distribution in a Euclidean universe. In the magnitude range 16 <21, the galaxy counts from both stripes agree very well and follow the prediction of the no-evolution model, although the data do not exclude a small amount of evolution. We use empirically determined color transformations to derive the galaxy number counts in the B and I-814 bands. We compute the luminosity density of the universe at zero redshift in the five SDSS bands and in the B band. We find L-B = 2.4 +/- 0.4 x 10(8) L-. h Mpc(-3), for a reasonably wide range of parameters of the Schechter luminosity function in the B band.