The VIRMOS deep imaging survey - II: CFH12K BVRI optical data for the 0226-04 deep field

H. J. McCracken; M. Radovich; E. Bertin; Y. Mellier; M. Dantel-Fort; O. Le Fèvre; J. C. Cuillandre; S. Gwyn; S. Foucaud; G. Zamorani

doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20031081

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Volume 410 / No 1 (October IV 2003)

A&A, 410 1 (2003) 17-32

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Issue		A&A Volume 410, Number 1, October IV 2003


Page(s)		17 - 32
Section		Cosmology (including clusters of galaxies)
DOI		https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20031081
Published online		17 November 2003

A&A 410, 17-32 (2003)

The VIRMOS deep imaging survey^*

II: CFH12K BVRI optical data for the 0226-04 deep field

H. J. McCracken¹^,2^,3, M. Radovich⁴^,5, E. Bertin⁴^,6, Y. Mellier⁴^,6, M. Dantel-Fort⁶, O. Le Fèvre², J. C. Cuillandre⁷, S. Gwyn², S. Foucaud² and G. Zamorani³

¹ University of Bologna, Department of Astronomy, via Ranzani 1, 40127 Bologna, Italy
² Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille, Traverse du Siphon, 13376 Marseille Cedex 12, France
³ Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna, via Ranzani 1, 40127 Bologna, Italy
⁴ Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, 98bis boulevard Arago, 75014 Paris, France
⁵ Osservatorio di Capodimonte, via Moiariello 16, 80131 Napoli, Italy
⁶ Observatoire de Paris, LERMA, 61 avenue de l'Observatoire, 75014 Paris, France
⁷ Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, 65-1238 Mamalahoa Highway, Kamuela, HI 96743

Corresponding author: H. J. McCracken, hjmcc@bo.astro.it

Received: 24 February 2003
Accepted: 17 June 2003

Abstract

In this paper we describe in detail the reduction, preparation and reliability of the photometric catalogues which comprise the CFH12K-VIRMOS deep field. This region, consisting of four contiguous pointings of the CFH12K wide-field mosaic camera, covers a total area of $1.2\deg^2$ . The survey reaches a limiting magnitude of $B_{\rm AB}\sim 26.5$ , $V_{\rm AB}\sim26.2$ , $R_{\rm AB}\sim25.9$ and $I_{\rm AB}\sim25.0$ (corresponding to the point at which our recovery rate for simulated point-like sources sources falls below $50\%$ ). In total the survey contains 90 729 extended sources in the magnitude range $18.0<I_{\rm AB}<24.0$ . We demonstrate our catalogues are free from systematic biases and are complete and reliable down these limits. By comparing our galaxy number counts to previous wide-field CCD surveys, we estimate that the upper limit on bin-to-bin systematic photometric errors for the $I-$ limited sample is ${\sim} 10\%$ in this magnitude range. We estimate that $68\%$ of the catalogues sources have absolute per co-ordinate astrometric uncertainties less than $\vert\Delta\alpha\vert\sim0.38\arcsec$ and $\vert\Delta\delta\vert\sim0.32\arcsec$ . Our internal (filter-to-filter) per co-ordinate astrometric uncertainties are $\vert\Delta\alpha\vert\sim0.08\arcsec$ and $\vert\Delta\delta\vert\sim0.08\arcsec$ . We quantify the completeness of our survey in the joint space defined by object total magnitude and peak surface brightness. We also demonstrate that no significant positional incompleteness effects are present in our catalogues to $I_{\rm AB}<24.0$ . Finally, we present numerous comparisons between our catalogues and published literature data: galaxy and star counts, galaxy and stellar colours, and the clustering of both point-like and extended populations. In all cases our measurements are in excellent agreement with literature data to $I_{\rm AB}<24.0$ . This combination of depth and areal coverage makes this multi-colour catalogue a solid foundation to select galaxies for follow-up spectroscopy with VIMOS on the ESO-VLT and a unique database to study the formation and evolution of the faint galaxy population to $z\sim1$ and beyond.

Key words: galaxies: general / astronomical data bases: miscellaneous / surveys / cosmology: large-scale structure of Universe

^*

Based on observations obtained at the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) which is operated by the National Research Council of Canada, the Institut des Sciences de l'Univers of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and the University of Hawaii.

© ESO, 2003

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The VIRMOS deep imaging survey*

II: CFH12K BVRI optical data for the 0226-04 deep field

The VIRMOS deep imaging survey^*