Mededeling

First Data Release of the VIKING Five-band Photometric Catalogue

19 december 2013

The VISTA Kilo-degree Infrared Galaxy Survey (VIKING), one of the 6 VISTA public surveys, is a wide area (eventually ~1500 square degrees), intermediate-depth (5-sigma detection limit J~21 [Vega]) near-infrared imaging survey, in the 5 broadband filters Z, Y, J, H, Ks. The first VIKING data release, which is based on observations until mid-February 2011, covers 226 square degrees in all 5 filters and consists of 14.7 million sources (including low-reliability single-band detections). The previously announced release of calibrated images is now complemented by the VIKING five-band photometric catalogue recording coordinates, fluxes, colour indices, morphological parameters and associated quality information (160 parameters per object), with a total data volume over 9 GB. The entire dataset or user-defined subsets are fully searchable and accessible from the catalogue facility query interface.