Abstract We present an analysis of the winding sense (S and Z-shapes) of 1 621 field galaxies that have radial velocity between 3 000 km s-1 and 5 000 km s-1 . The preferred alignments of S- and Z-shaped galaxies are studied using chi-square, auto correlation and Fourier series tests. We classify all the galaxies into 32 subsamples and notice a good agreement between the position angle (PA) distribution of the S- and Z- shaped galaxies. The homogeneous distribution of the S- and Z-shaped galaxies is more noticeable for the late-type spirals (Sc, Scd, Sd and Sm) than for the early-types (Sa, Sab, Sb and Sbc). A significant dominance of S-mode galaxies is apparent in the barred spirals. A random alignment is evident in the PA-distribution of Z- and S-mode spirals. In addition, a homogeneous distribution of the S- and Z-shaped galaxies is found to be invariant under global expansion. The PA-distribution of the total S-mode galaxies is found to be random, whereas a preferred alignment is clear for all the Z-mode galaxies. It is found that the galactic planes of Z-mode galaxies tend to lie in the equatorial plane.

Keywords galaxies: spiral — galaxies: clusters: individual (local supercluster)

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