Electron density distributions in momentum space of the valence orbitals of ethane (C2H6) are measured by electron momentum spectroscopy (EMS) in a noncoplanar symmetric geometry. The impact energy was 1200 eV plus binding energy and energy resolution of the EMS spectrometer was 0.95 eV. The measured experimental momentum distributions of the valence orbitals are compared with Hartree-Fock and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The shapes of the experimental momentum distributions are generally quite well described by both the Hartree-Fock and DFT calculations when large and diffuse basis sets are used. A strong "turn up" of the experimental cross section is observed for the HOMO 1e(g) orbital in the low momentum region, compared with the theoretical calculations. The pole strengths for the main ionization peaks in the inner-valence region are estimated. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.