Bright Metal-poor Stars from the Hamburg/ESO Survey. I. Selection and Follow-up Observations from 329 Fields We present a sample of 1777 bright (91.0) metal-poor([Fe/H]<-2.0) giants of 9%+/-2%, which is lower than previouslyreported. However, the frequency rises to similar (>20%) and highervalues with increasing distance from the Galactic plane. Although thenumbers of stars at low metallicity are falling rapidly at the lowestmetallicities, there is evidence that the fraction of carbon-enhancedmetal-poor stars is increasing rapidly as a function of decliningmetallicity. For ~60 objects, high-resolution data have already beenobtained; one of these, HE 1327-2326, is the new record holder for themost iron-deficient star known.
