Publications (19)4.59 Total impact
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Article: The Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey - VLT/ISAAC Near-Infrared Imaging of the GOODS-South Field
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ABSTRACT: We present the final public data release of the VLT/ISAAC near-infrared imaging survey in the GOODS-South field. The survey covers an area of 172.5, 159.6 and 173.1 arcmin^2 in the J, H, and Ks bands, respectively. For point sources total limiting magnitudes of J=25.0, H=24.5, and Ks=24.4 (5 sigma, AB) are reached within 75% of the survey area. Thus these observations are significantly deeper than the previous EIS Deep Public Survey which covers the same region. The image quality is characterized by a point spread function ranging between 0.34 arcsec and 0.65 arcsec FWHM. The images are registered with an accuracy of ~0.06 arcsec RMS over the whole field. The overall photometric accuracy, including all systematic effects, adds up to 0.05 mag. The data are publicly available from the ESO science archive facility. We define a catalog of Ks-selected sources which contains JHKs photometry for 7079 objects. We briefly discuss the resulting color distributions in the context of available redshift data. Furthermore, we estimate the completeness fraction and relative contamination due to spurious detections for source catalogs extracted from the survey data. With respect to previous deep near-infrared surveys, the surface density of faint galaxies has been established with unprecedented accuracy by virtue of the unique combination of depth and area of this survey. We derived galaxy number counts over eight magnitudes in flux up to J=25.25, H=25.0, Ks=25.25 (in the AB system). Very similar faint-end logarithmic slopes between 0.24 and 0.27 per mag were measured in the three bands. We found no evidence for a significant change in the slope of the logarithmic galaxy number counts at the faint end. Comment: 24 pages, 17 figures, 4 tables, accepted for publication in A&A, associated data products available at http://archive.eso.org/cms/eso-data/data-packages/goods-isaac-final-data-release-version-2-012/2009; -
Article: User Interface for the ESO Advanced Data Products Image Reduction Pipeline
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ABSTRACT: The poster presents a friendly user interface for image reduction, totally written in Python and developed by the Advanced Data Products (ADP) group. The interface is a front-end to the ESO/MVM image reduction package, originally developed in the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) project and used currently to reduce imaging data from several instruments such as WFI, ISAAC, SOFI and FORS1. As part of its scope, the interface produces high-level, VO-compliant, science images from raw data providing the astronomer with a complete monitoring system during the reduction, computing also statistical image properties for data quality assessment. The interface is meant to be used for VO services and it is free but un-maintained software and the intention of the authors is to share code and experience. The poster describes the interface architecture and current capabilities and give a description of the ESO/MVM engine for image reduction. The ESO/MVM engine should be released by the end of this year.06/2006; 351:570. -
Article: ESO Advanced Data Products for the Virtual Observatory
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ABSTRACT: Advanced Data Products, that is, completely reduced, fully characterized science-ready data sets, play a crucial role for the success of the Virtual Observatory as a whole. We report on on-going work at ESO towards the creation and publication of Advanced Data Products in compliance with present VO standards on resource metadata. The new deep NIR multi-color mosaic of the GOODS/CDF-S region is used to showcase different aspects of the entire process: data reduction employing our MVM-based reduction pipeline, calibration and data characterization procedures, standardization of metadata content, and, finally, a prospect of the scientific potential illustrated by new results on deep galaxy number counts.06/2006; 351:441. -
Article: ESO Imaging Survey: infrared observations of CDF-S and HDF-S
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ABSTRACT: This paper presents infrared data obtained from observations carried out at the ESO 3.5m New Technology Telescope (NTT) of the Hubble Deep Field South (HDF-S) and the Chandra Deep Field South (CDF-S). These data were taken as part of the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) program, a public survey conducted by ESO to promote follow-up observations with the VLT. In the HDF-S field the infrared observations cover an area of ~53 square arcmin, encompassing the HST WFPC2 and STIS fields, in the JHKs passbands. The seeing measured in the final stacked images ranges from 0.79" to 1.22" and the median limiting magnitudes (AB system, 2" aperture, 5sigma detection limit) are J_AB~23.0, H_AB~22.8 and K_AB~23.0 mag. Less complete data are also available in JKs for the adjacent HST NICMOS field. For CDF-S, the infrared observations cover a total area of \~100 square arcmin, reaching median limiting magnitudes (as defined above) of J_AB~23.6 and K_AB~22.7 mag. For one CDF-S field H-band data are also available. This paper describes the observations and presents the results of new reductions carried out entirely through the un-supervised, high-throughput EIS Data Reduction System and its associated EIS/MVM C++-based image processing library developed, over the past 5 years, by the EIS project and now publicly available. The paper also presents source catalogs extracted from the final co-added images which are used to evaluate the scientific quality of the survey products, and hence the performance of the software. This is done comparing the results obtained in the present work with those obtained by other authors from independent data and/or reductions carried out with different software packages and techniques. The final science-grade catalogs and co-added images are available at CDS. Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A, 13 pages, 12 figures; a full resolution version of the paper is available from http://www.astro.ku.dk/~lisbeth/eisdata/papers/4528.pdf ; related catalogs and images are available through http://www.astro.ku.dk/~lisbeth/eisdata/02/2006; -
Article: ESO Imaging Survey: Optical follow-up of 12 selected XMM-Newton fields
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ABSTRACT: (Abridged) This paper presents the data recently released for the XMM-Newton/WFI survey carried out as part of the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) project. The aim of this survey is to provide optical imaging follow-up data in BVRI for identification of serendipitously detected X-ray sources in selected XMM-Newton fields. In this paper, fully calibrated individual and stacked images of 12 fields as well as science-grade catalogs for the 8 fields located at high-galactic latitude are presented. The data covers an area of \sim 3 square degrees for each of the four passbands. The median limiting magnitudes (AB system, 2" aperture, 5\sigma detection limit) are 25.20, 24.92, 24.66, and 24.39 mag for B-, V-, R-, and I-band, respectively. These survey products, together with their logs, are available to the community for science exploitation in conjunction with their X-ray counterparts. Preliminary results from the X-ray/optical cross-correlation analysis show that about 61% of the detected X-ray point sources in deep XMM-Newton exposures have at least one optical counterpart within 2" radius down to R \simeq 25 mag, 50% of which are so faint as to require VLT observations thereby meeting one of the top requirements of the survey, namely to produce large samples for spectroscopic follow-up with the VLT, whereas only 15% of the objects have counterparts down to the DSS limiting magnitude. Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Accompanying data releases available at http://archive.eso.org/archive/public_datasets.html (WFI images), http://www.eso.org/science/eis/surveys/release_65000025_XMM.html (optical catalogs), http://www.aip.de/groups/xray/XMM_EIS/ (X-ray data). Full resolution version available at http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dietrich/publications/3785.ps.gz10/2005; -
Article: ESO Imaging Survey. The Stellar Catalogue in the Chandra Deep Field South
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ABSTRACT: (abridged) Stellar catalogues in five passbands (UBVRI) over an area of approximately 0.3 deg^2, comprising about 1200 objects, and in seven passbands (UBVRIJK) over approximately 0.1 deg^2, comprising about 400 objects, in the direction of the Chandra Deep Field South are presented. The 90% completeness level of the number counts is reached at approximately U = 23.8, B = 24.0, V = 23.5, R = 23.0, I = 21.0, J = 20.5, K = 19.0. A scheme is presented to select point sources from these catalogues, by combining the SExtractor parameter CLASS_STAR from all available passbands. Probable QSOs and unresolved galaxies are identified by using the previously developed \chi^2-technique (Hatziminaoglou et al 2002), that fits the overall spectral energy distributions to template spectra and determines the best fitting template. The observed number counts, colour-magnitude diagrams, colour-colour diagrams and colour distributions are presented and, to judge the quality of the data, compared to simulations based on the predictions of a Galactic Model convolved with the estimated completeness functions and the error model used to describe the photometric errors of the data. The resulting stellar catalogues and the objects identified as likely QSOs and unresolved galaxies with coordinates, observed magnitudes with errors and assigned spectral types by the $\chi^2$-technique are presented and are publicly available. Comment: Paper as it will appear in print. Complete figures and tables can be obtained from: http://www.eso.org/science/eis/eis_pub/eis_pub.html. Astronomy & Astrophysics, accepted for publication05/2002; -
Article: ESO for GOODS' sake
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ABSTRACT: Currently public ESO data sets pertinent to the CDFS/GOODS field are briefly illustrated along with an indication on how to get access to them. Future ESO plans for complementing the GOODS database with optical/IR imaging and optical spectroscopy are also described. Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the ESO/USM Workshop "The Mass of Galaxies at Low and High Redshift" (Venice, Italy, October 2001), eds. R. Bender and A. Renzini04/2002; -
Article: ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) (Arnouts+, 2001)
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ABSTRACT: This paper presents multi-passband optical data obtained from observations of the Chandra Deep Field South (CDF-S), located at RA=03h32m, Dec=-27{deg}48'. The observations were conducted at the ESO/MPG 2.2 m telescope at La Silla using the 8kx8k Wide-Field Imager (WFI). This data set, taken over a period of one year, represents the first field to be completed by the ongoing Deep Public Survey (DPS) being carried out as a part of the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) project. The paper describes the optical observations, the techniques employed for un-supervised pipeline processing and the general characteristics of the final data set. Image processing has been performed using multi-resolution image decomposition techniques adapted to the EIS pipeline. The automatic processing steps include standard de-bias and flat-field, automatic removal of satellite tracks, de-fringing/sky-subtraction, image stacking/mosaicking and astrometry. Stacking of dithered images is carried out using pixel-based astrometry which enables the efficient removal of cosmic rays and image defects, yielding remarkably clean final images. The final astrometric calibration is based on a pre-release of the GSC-II catalog and has an estimated intrinsic accuracy of la 0.10 arcsec, with all passbands sharing the same solution. The data are taken in six different filters (U'UBVRI), cover an area of about 0.25 square degrees, and reach the 5{sigma} limiting magnitudes of U'AB=26.0, UAB=25.7, BAB=26.4, VAB=25.4, RAB=25.5 and IAB=24.7 mag, as measured within a 2xFWHM aperture. The optical data covers an area of ~0.1 square degree for which moderately deep observations in two near-infrared bands are also available, reaching 5{sigma} limiting magnitudes of JAB~23.4 and KAB~22.6. The current optical/infrared data also fully encompass the region of the deep X-ray observations recently completed by the Chandra telescope. The optical data presented here, as well as the infrared data released earlier, are publicly available world-wide in the form of fully calibrated pixel and associated weight maps and source lists extracted in each passband. These data can be requested through the URL ``http://www.eso.org/eis''. Based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory, La Silla, Chile within program ESO 164.O-O561. (12 data files).VizieR Online Data Catalog. 03/2002; 337:90740. -
Article: ESO Imaging Survey. Exploring the optical/infrared imaging data of CDF-S: Point Sources
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ABSTRACT: This paper describes the methodology currently being implemented in the EIS pipeline for analysing optical/infrared multi-colour data. The aim is to identify different classes of objects as well as possible undesirable features associated with the construction of colour catalogues. The classification method used is based on the xi^2-fitting of template spectra to the observed SEDs, as measured through broad-band filters. Its main advantage is the simultaneous use of all colours, properly weighted by the photometric errors. In addition, it provides basic information on the properties of the classified objects (eg redshift, effective temperature). These characteristics make the xi^2-technique ideal for handling large multi-band datasets. The results are compared to the more traditional colour-colour selection and, whenever possible, to model predictions. In order to identify objects with odd colours, either associated with rare populations or to possible problems in the catalogue, outliers are searched for in the multi-dimensional colour space using a nearest-neighbour criterion. Outliers with large xi^2-values are individually inspected to further investigate their nature. The tools developed are used for a preliminary analysis of the multi-colour point source catalogue constructed from the optical/infrared imaging data obtained for the Chandra Deep Field South (CDF-S). These data are publicly available, representing the first installment of the ongoing EIS Deep Public Survey. Comment: 18 pages, LaTeX, 16 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in A&A01/2002; -
Article: ESO Imaging Survey. CDF-S point sources (Hatziminaoglou+, 2002)
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ABSTRACT: This paper describes the methodology currently being implemented in the EIS pipeline for analysing optical/infrared multi-colour data. The aim is to identify different classes of objects as well as possible undesirable features associated with the construction of colour catalogues. The tools developed are used for a preliminary analysis of the multi-colour point source catalogue constructed from the optical/infrared imaging data obtained for the Chandra Deep Field South (CDF-S). These data are publicly available, representing the first installment of the ongoing EIS Deep Public Survey. (4 data files).VizieR Online Data Catalog. 12/2001; 338:40081. -
Article: ESO imaging survey. Pre-FLAMES survey: Observations of selected stellar fields
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ABSTRACT: This paper presents the first set of fully calibrated images and associated stellar catalogs of the Pre-FLAMES survey being carried out by the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) project. The primary goal of this survey is to provide the ESO community with data sets from which suitable target lists can be extracted for follow-up observations with the new VLT facility FLAMES (Fiber Large Array Multi Element Spectrograph). For this purpose, 160 stellar fields have been selected for observations in B, V and I using the 8kx8k Wide Field Imager (WFI) at the MPG/ESO 2.2 m telescope at La Silla. Out of those, over 100 fields have already been observed. The list of selected fields includes open clusters, globular clusters, regions in the Galaxy bulge, dwarf spheroidal galaxies in the vicinity of the Milky Way, contiguous regions of SMC and LMC and few nearby clusters of galaxies. The present paper discusses the results obtained for a small subset of these data, which include four open clusters (M 67, NGC 2477, NGC 2506 and Berkeley 20) and two regions of the SMC. These data have been used to assess the observing strategy adopted, a combination of short- and long-exposures, and to define suitable reduction techniques and procedures for the preparation of input catalogs for FLAMES. In order to minimize light losses due to misplacements of FLAMES fibers, the astrometric calibration of crowded stellar fields is a critical issue. The impact of different swarping techniques and different reference catalogs on the astrometric calibration of the images is evaluated and compared to those of other authors. From this comparison, one finds that both USNO 2.0 and the recently released GSC 2.2 yield comparable results with the positional differences having a rms of about 0.15 arcsec, well within the requirements (0.2 arcsec) specified by the FLAMES science team. The internal accuracy of the astrometry is estimated to be <~ 0.1 arcsec, primarily limited by the reference catalog used. The major difference between these catalogs is the systematic variation of the positional residuals as a function of the apparent magnitude of the objects, with the GSC 2.2 yielding by far the best results. The astrometric calibration of the images presented here is based on the USNO 2.0 catalog because not all fields considered are covered by the current release of the GSC 2.2. Future EIS calibrations will be done using the GSC 2.2 catalog. The extraction and photometric measurements of stellar sources are carried out using a PSF fitting technique. Comparison with results available in the literature shows that the photometric measurements are in good agreement, apart from possible zero-point offsets, with the magnitude differences having a scatter of ~ 0.06 mag at V=20 mag. This demonstrates that the data allow for the selection of robust targets down to the expected spectroscopic limit of FLAMES. The combination of catalogs extracted from the short and long-exposures allows one to produce color-magnitude diagrams (CMD) spanning ~ 13 mag in V and reaching a limiting magnitude of V ~ 22-23. These data have also been combined with data from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) survey allowing for a better color-based object classification and target selection. The Pre-Flames (PF) survey data meet the requirements of FLAMES, and provide a good starting point for detailed studies of the examined systems. The images and catalogs presented here are publicly available and can be requested from the URL address ``http://www.eso.org/eis''. Based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory, La Silla, Chile within program ESO 164.O-O561.Astronomy and Astrophysics 10/2001; 379:436-452. · 4.59 Impact Factor -
Article: Pre-FLAMES Survey: Observations of Selected Stellar Fields
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ABSTRACT: This paper presents the first set of fully calibrated images and associated stellar catalogs of the Pre-FLAMES survey being carried out by the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) project. The primary goal of this survey is to provide the ESO community with data sets from which suitable target lists can be extracted for follow-up observations with the new VLT facility FLAMES. For this purpose 160 stellar fields have been selected for observations in B, V and I using the 8kx8k Wide Field Imager (WFI) at the MPG/ESO 2.2 m telescope at La Silla. These data have been used to assess the observing strategy adopted and to define suitable reduction techniques and procedures for the preparation of input catalogs for FLAMES. The images and catalogs presented here are publicly available and can be requested from the URL address ``http://www.eso.org/eis''. Comment: 18 pages, 28 figures available in gif format. The postscript version of the paper with all the figures encapsulated is available at http://www.eso.org/science/eis/eis_pub/eis_pub.html. Astronomy & Astrophysics, accepted09/2001; -
Article: The EIS Pre-FLAMES Survey: observations of selected stellar fields
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ABSTRACT: The primary goal of the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) project is to produce data sets matching the foreseen scientific goals and requirements of different VLT instruments (e.g. Renzini and da Costa 1997) and to publicly release them prior to the commissioning and first year of operation of these instruments. With this goal in mind, for the past two years EIS has been carrying out the Deep Public Survey (DPS), an optical/infrared deep survey of high-galactic latitude fields, and the Pre-Flames (PF) Survey, a B V I survey of selected stellar fields, to provide suitable samples for VIMOS and FLAMES (Fibre Large Array Multi-Element Spectrograph, Pasquini et al. 2000), respectively.The Messenger. 08/2001; 105:25-31. -
Article: ESO Imaging Survey. Deep Public Survey: Infrared Data for the Chandra Deep Field South
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ABSTRACT: This paper presents new J and Ks near-infrared data obtained from observations of the Chandra Deep Field South (CDF-S) conducted at the ESO 3.5m New Technology Telescope (NTT). These data were taken as part of the ongoing Deep Public Survey (DPS) being carried out by the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) program, extending the EIS-DEEP survey. Combined these surveys now provide a contiguous coverage over an area of 400 square arcmin in the near-infrared, nearly matching that covered by the deep X-ray observations of Chandra, four times the area of the original EIS-DEEP survey. The paper briefly describes the observations and the new techniques being employed for pipeline processing jittered infrared observations, which include unbiased de-fringing and sky-background subtraction, pixel-based astrometry and stacking and pixel registration based on a multi-resolution decomposition of the images. The astrometric solution is based on a pre-release of the GSC-II catalog and has an accuracy of < 0.15 arcsec. The final images for 12 pointings presented here reach median 5 sigma limiting magnitudes of J_AB~23.4 and K_AB~22.6 as measured within an aperture 2xFWHM. The frame to frame variation of the photometric zero-point is estimated to be <0.09 mag. The data are publicly available in the form of fully calibrated J and Ks pixel maps and source lists extracted for each pointing. These data can be requested through the URL ``http://www.eso.org/eis''.03/2001; -
Article: ESO Imaging Survey. Deep Public Survey: Multi-Color Optical Data for the Chandra Deep Field South
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ABSTRACT: This paper presents multi-passband optical data obtained from observations of the Chandra Deep Field South (CDF-S), located at alpha ~ 3h 32m, delta ~ -27d 48m. The observations were conducted at the ESO/MPG 2.2m telescope at La Silla using the 8kx8k Wide-Field Imager (WFI). This data set, taken over a period of one year, represents the first field to be completed by the ongoing Deep Public Survey (DPS) being carried out by the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) project. This paper describes the optical observations, the techniques employed for un-supervised pipeline processing and the general characteristics of the final data set. The paper includes data taken in six different filters U'UBVRI. The data cover an area of about 0.25 square degrees reaching 5 sigma limiting magnitudes of U'_AB=26.0, U_AB=25.7, B_AB=26.4$, V_AB=25.4, R_AB=25.5 and I_AB= 24.7 mag, as measured within a 2xFWHM aperture. The optical data covers the area of ~ 0.1 Comment: 13 pages, 19 postscript figures, Figure 3,4,7,10 are available in jpeg format, use aa.cls style. The full postscript of the paper is available at http://www.eso.org/science/eis/eis_pub/eis_pub.html03/2001; -
Article: The Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey
http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/200912940. -
Article: ESO imaging survey
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ABSTRACT: This paper presents the first set of fully calibrated images and associated stellar catalogs of the Pre-FLAMES survey being carried out by the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) project. The primary goal of this survey is to provide the ESO community with data sets from which suitable target lists can be extracted for follow-up observations with the new VLT facility FLAMES (Fiber Large Array Multi Element Spectrograph). For this purpose, 160 stellar fields have been selected for observations in $B$, $V$ and $I$ using the $\rm 8k\times8k$ Wide Field Imager (WFI) at the MPG/ESO 2.2 m telescope at La Silla. Out of those, over 100 fields have already been observed. The list of selected fields includes open clusters, globular clusters, regions in the Galaxy bulge, dwarf spheroidal galaxies in the vicinity of the Milky Way, contiguous regions of SMC and LMC and few nearby clusters of galaxies. The present paper discusses the results obtained for a small subset of these data, which include four open clusters (M 67, NGC 2477, NGC 2506 and Berkeley 20) and two regions of the SMC. These data have been used to assess the observing strategy adopted, a combination of short- and long-exposures, and to define suitable reduction techniques and procedures for the preparation of input catalogs for FLAMES. In order to minimize light losses due to misplacements of FLAMES fibers, the astrometric calibration of crowded stellar fields is a critical issue. The impact of different swarping techniques and different reference catalogs on the astrometric calibration of the images is evaluated and compared to those of other authors. From this comparison, one finds that both USNO 2.0 and the recently released GSC 2.2 yield comparable results with the positional differences having a rms of about $0.15$ arcsec, well within the requirements ($0.2$ arcsec) specified by the FLAMES science team. The internal accuracy of the astrometry is estimated to be $\lesssim$0.1 arcsec, primarily limited by the reference catalog used. The major difference between these catalogs is the systematic variation of the positional residuals as a function of the apparent magnitude of the objects, with the GSC 2.2 yielding by far the best results. The astrometric calibration of the images presented here is based on the USNO 2.0 catalog because not all fields considered are covered by the current release of the GSC 2.2. Future EIS calibrations will be done using the GSC 2.2 catalog. The extraction and photometric measurements of stellar sources are carried out using a PSF fitting technique. Comparison with results available in the literature shows that the photometric measurements are in good agreement, apart from possible zero-point offsets, with the magnitude differences having a scatter of ~0.06 mag at $V=20$ mag. This demonstrates that the data allow for the selection of robust targets down to the expected spectroscopic limit of FLAMES. The combination of catalogs extracted from the short and long-exposures allows one to produce color-magnitude diagrams (CMD) spanning ~13 mag in $V$ and reaching a limiting magnitude of $V\sim22{-}23$. These data have also been combined with data from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) survey allowing for a better color-based object classification and target selection. The Pre-Flames (PF) survey data meet the requirements of FLAMES, and provide a good starting point for detailed studies of the examined systems. The images and catalogs presented here are publicly available and can be requested from the URL address "http://www.eso.org/eis" .http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20011325. -
Article: ESO imaging survey
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ABSTRACT: This paper presents multi-passband optical data obtained from observations of the Chandra Deep Field South (CDF-S), located at $\alpha \sim 3^{\rm h} 32^{\rm m}$, $\delta \sim -27^\circ 48^{\prime}$. The observations were conducted at the ESO/MPG 2.2 m telescope at La Silla using the $8{\rm k}\times8{\rm k}$ Wide-Field Imager (WFI). This data set, taken over a period of one year, represents the first field to be completed by the ongoing Deep Public Survey (DPS) being carried out as a part of the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) project. This paper describes the optical observations, the techniques employed for un-supervised pipeline processing and the general characteristics of the final data set. Image processing has been performed using multi-resolution image decomposition techniques adapted to the EIS pipeline. The automatic processing steps include standard de-bias and flat-field, automatic removal of satellite tracks, de-fringing/sky-subtraction, image stacking/mosaicking and astrometry. Stacking of dithered images is carried out using pixel-based astrometry which enables the efficient removal of cosmic rays and image defects, yielding remarkably clean final images. The final astrometric calibration is based on a pre-release of the GSC-II catalog and has an estimated intrinsic accuracy of $\la$0.10 arcsec, with all passbands sharing the same solution. The paper includes data taken in six different filters ($U'UBVRI$). The data cover an area of about 0.25 square degrees reaching 5$\sigma$ limiting magnitudes of $U'_{AB}=26.0$, $U_{AB}=25.7$, $B_{AB}=26.4$, $V_{AB}=25.4, R_{AB}=25.5$ and $I_{AB}=$ 24.7 mag, as measured within a $2 \times FWHM$ aperture. The optical data covers an area of ~0.1 square degrees for which moderately deep observations in two near-infrared bands are also available, reaching $5\sigma$ limiting magnitudes of $J_{AB}\sim23.4$ and $K_{AB}\sim22.6$. The current optical/infrared data also fully encompass the region of the deep X-ray observations recently completed by the Chandra telescope. The optical data presented here, as well as the infrared data released earlier, are publicly available world-wide in the form of fully calibrated pixel and associated weight maps and source lists extracted in each passband. These data can be requested through the URL "http://www.eso.org/eis" .http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20011341. -
Article: The ESO Imaging Survey Project: Status and Pipeline Software
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ABSTRACT: The ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) is a major public imaging survey project being conducted by the European Southern Observatory using several different telescopes and detectors at La Silla in Chile. The primary aim is the identification of samples suitable for more detailed study using the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT). The first part of the project consisted of two parts: EIS-Wide, an optical survey to moderate depth (IAB ~< 24) covering about 20 square degrees; and EIS-Deep, which covered smaller areas of sky to greater depth (BAB ~< 26.5) and also included deep near-IR imaging. These surveys are essentially complete and the data are available to users world-wide through the EIS web pages. Following a successful pilot project with the new Wide Field Imager (WFI) on the 2.2m telescope at La Silla, the EIS team is now engaged in a public imaging survey using the WFI telescope in conjunction with IR imaging using SOFI on the NTT. Three deep fields of one degree square, including the Chandra Deep Field South (CDF-S), are being imaged in the optical along with smaller sub-areas in IR bands. In addition, 160 stellar fields have been imaged as part of the preparations for the use of the FLAMES fibre-feed system for spectrographs on the VLT. To support the large data volume from this survey and to facilitate its rapid scientific exploitation, a complete end-to-end pipeline system has been developed. Here we give a brief outline of the project so far, and describe the motivation and architecture for the pipeline software.238:283.
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2001–2006
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European Southern Observatory
Garching bei München, Bavaria, Germany
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