Public Surveys Projects
Here is the presentation of the ESO public surveys in the ESO messenger by the ESO Survey Team (2007, Msng. 127, 28) .
VST Surveys
KIDS The Kilo-Degree Survey
PI Konrad Kuijken ( Leiden)
This survey aims to image 1500 square degrees in 4 bands (to be complemented in the near-infrared with data from the VIKING survey). The survey aims to cover this large area to a depth 2.5 magnitudes deeper than the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), with considerably better image quality. The primary science driver for the design of this project has been weak gravitational lensing. The science goals of the KIDS project are numerous, including: studying dark matter halos and dark energy with weak lensing, investigating galaxy evolution, searching for galaxy clusters, and looking for high redshift quasars. The KIDS project fills an important niche in lensing surveys between smaller, slightly deeper surveys, such as the CFHT Legacy Survey, and larger, shallower surveys like the SDSS.
The VST ATLAS
PI Tom Shanks ( Durham)
This survey is targeting 4500 square degrees of the Southern Sky in 5 filters to depths comparable to the SDSS. This survey will also be complemented with near-infrared data from the VHS VISTA survey. The primary science driver is to determine the dark energy equation of state by examining the 'baryon wiggles' in the matter power spectrum, via surveys of luminous red galaxies using both photometric and spectroscopic redshifts. But this survey will also provide the imaging base for many other future spectroscopic surveys, both at the VLT and also via wide-field fibre spectrographs such as the new AAOmega instrument at the Anglo-Australian Observatory. For example, the VST ATLAS will be valuable in the hunt for high redshift galaxies and quasars.
homepage: http://astro.dur.ac.uk/Cosmology/vstatlas/
VPHAS+ - The VST Photometric H-α Survey of the Southern Galactic Plane
PI Janet Drew (Imperial)
This survey will combine H-α and broadband u'g'r'i' imaging over an area of 1800 square degrees capturing the whole of the Southern Galactic Plane within the latitude range |b| < 5 degrees. VPHAS+ will facilitate detailed extinction mapping of the Galactic Plane, and can be used to map the structure of the Galactic disk and its star formation history. The survey will yield a catalogue of around 500 million objects, which will include greatly enhanced samples of rare evolved massive stars, Be stars, Herbig and T Tau stars, post-AGB stars, compact nebulae, white dwarfs and interacting binaries. This survey is complementary to IPHAS, a survey of the Northern Galactic Plane nearing completion, but VPHAS+ will include more filters and will achieve better image quality.
| VST survey observing strategies | ||
|---|---|---|
| Survey | Area (deg2) | Filters and Depth (mag (10σ, AB) |
| KIDS | 1500 | u'=24.8 g'=25.4 r'=25.2 i'=24.2 |
| ATLAS | 4500 | u'=22.0 g'=22.2 r'=22.2 i'=21.3 z'=20.5 |
| VPHAS+ | 1800 | u'=21.8 g'=22.5 Hα=21.6 r'=22.5 i'=21.8 |
Sky coverage of VST surveys, overlaid on a 2MASS image of the whole sky.
VISTA Surveys
UltraVISTA
PIs Jim Dunlop ( Edinburgh), Marijn Franx ( Leiden), Johan Fynbo ( Copenhagen), Olivier LeFèvre ( Marseilles)
Ultra-VISTA aims to image one patch of the sky (the COSMOS field) over and over again to unprecedented depths. The survey will use the Y, J, H, and Ks broadband filters along with one narrow-band filter specifically designed to study Lyman-a emitters at redshift 8.8, of which ~30 are expected to be found with this survey. The science goals of Ultra-VISTA include studying the first galaxies, the stellar mass build-up during the peak epoch of star formation activity, and dust obscured star formation.
VIKING - VISTA Kilo-Degree Infrared Galaxy Survey
PI Will Sutherland ( Cambridge)
The VIKING survey provides an important complement to the optical KIDS project. VIKING will image the same 1500 square degrees of the sky in Z, Y, J, H, and Ks to a limiting magnitude 1.4 mag deeper than the UKIDSS Large Area Survey. The near-infrared data will be used in the determination of very accurate photometric redshifts, especially at z > 1, an important step in the weak lensing analysis and the observation of baryon acoustic oscillations. Other science drivers include the hunt for high redshift quasars, galaxy clusters, and the study of galaxy stellar masses.
VMC - VISTA Magellanic Survey
PI Maria-Rosa Cioni (Edinburgh)
This survey will image 184 square degrees of the Magellanic System, i.e., the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Small Magellanic Cloud, the Bridge, and the Magellanic Stream in the Y, J, and Ks wavebands. Multi-epoch observations will constrain the mean magnitude of short-period variables. The survey will be used to study resolved stellar populations, the star formation history of the system as well as to trace its three-dimensional structure.
homepage: http://star.herts.ac.uk/~mcioni/vmc/
VVV - VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea
PI Dante Minniti (Catolica)
The VVV survey will target the galactic bulge and a piece of the adjacent plane in Z, Y, J, H, and Ks. The total area of this survey is 520 square degrees and contains 355 open and 33 globular clusters. The VVV is multi-epoch in nature in order to detect a large number of variable objects and will provide > 100 carefully spaced observations for each tile. A catalog with ~109 point sources including ~10 6 variable objects is expected. These will be used to create a 3-dimensional map of the Bulge from well-understood distance indicators such as RR Lyrae stars. Other science drivers include the ages of stellar populations, globular cluster evolution, as well as the stellar initial mass function.
homepage: http://www2.astro.puc.cl/VVV/index.php/
VHS - VISTA Hemisphere Survey
PI Richard McMahon ( Cambridge)
The VHS will image the entire ~20 000 square degrees of the Southern Sky, with the exception of the areas already covered by the VIKING and VVV surveys, in J and Ks. The resulting data will be about 4 magnitudes deeper than 2MASS and DENIS. The 5000 square degrees covered by the Dark Energy Survey (DES), another imaging survey scheduled to begin in 2010 at the CTIO 4 metre Blanco telescope, will also be observed in H-band. The area around both of the Galactic Caps will be observed in Y- and H- band as well to be combined with the data from the VST ATLAS survey. The main science drivers of the VHS include: examining low mass and nearby stars, studying the merger history of the Galaxy, measuring the properties of Dark Energy through the examination of large-scale structure to a redshift of ~1, and searches for high redshift quasars.
VIDEO - VISTA Deep Extragalactic Observations Survey
PI Matt Jarvis (Hertfordshire)
VIDEO is a 15 square degree Z, Y, J, H, Ks survey to study galaxy evolution as a function of epoch and environment to redshift of ~4 using active galactic nuclei, galaxy cluster evolution, and very massive galaxies. The survey comprises four fields: the Chandra Deep Field South, 4.5 square degrees of the XMM-Newton Large-Scale Structure Survey, a field of the European Large-Area ISO Survey, and a new field. The width and area of VIDEO are intermediate between the wide but relatively shallow VIKING survey and the small, but very deep, Ultra-VISTA.
| VISTA survey observing strategies | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Survey | Area (deg2) | Filters and Depth Measure(mag (10σ, AB) |
Depth (mag) |
| Ultra-VISTA | 0.73 (ultra-deep) | 5α, AB | Y=26.7 J=26.6 H=26.1 Ks=25.6 NB=24.1 |
| VIKING | 1500 | 5α, AB | Z=23.1 Y=22.3 J=22.1 H=21.5 Ks=21.2 |
| VMC | 184 | 10α, Vega | Y=21.9 J=21.4 Ks=20.3 |
| VVV | 520 | 5α, Vega | Z=21.9 Y=21.2 J=20.2 H=18.2 Ks=18.1 |
| VHS | 20 000 | 5α, AB | Y=21.2 Y=21.2 J=21.2 H=20.6 Ks=20.0 |
| VIDEO | 15 | 5α, AB | Z=25.7 Y=24.6 J=24.5 H=24.0 Ks=23.5 |
Sky coverage of VISTA surveys, overlaid on a 2MASS image of the whole sky.