The Capodimonte Deep Field^*,**

Presentation of the survey and first follow-up studies

¹ INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte, via Moiariello 16, 80131 Napoli, Italy e-mail: jmae@na.astro.it
² Max - Planck Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, Giessenbachstrasse, 85748 Garching bei München, Germany
³ INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Torino, via Osservatorio 20 10025 Pino Torinese, Italy
⁴ Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche, Università Federico II, Napoli, Italy
⁵ Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille, BP 8, 13376 Marseille Cedex 12, France
⁶ Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita' di Roma Tor Vergata, via della Ricerca Scientifica 1, 00133 Roma, Italy
⁷ Max Planck Institut für Astrophysik, 85748 Garching bei München, Germany
⁸ INFN - Napoli Unit, via Cinthia 6, 80126 Napoli, Italy
⁹ Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, Landleven 12, 9747 AD Groningen, The Netherlands
¹⁰ INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Monteporzio, via di Frascati 33, 00044 Roma, Italy

Received: 22 July 2003
Accepted: 5 August 2004

Abstract

We present the Capodimonte Deep Field (OACDF), a deep field covering an area of 0.5 in the B, V, R optical bands plus six medium-band filters in the wavelength range 773–913 nm. The field reaches the following limiting magnitudes: , and and contains ~50 000 extended sources in the magnitude range 18 . Hence, it is intermediate between deep pencil beam surveys and very wide but shallow surveys. The main scientific goal of the OACDF is the identification and characterization of early-type field galaxies at different look-back times in order to study different scenarios of galaxy formation. Parallel goals include the search for groups and clusters of galaxies and the search for rare and peculiar objects (gravitational lenses, QSOs, halo White Dwarfs). In this paper we describe the OACDF data reduction, the methods adopted for the extraction of the photometric catalogs, the photometric calibration and the quality assessment of the catalogs by means of galaxy number counts, spectroscopic and photometric redshifts and star colors. We also present the first results of the search for galaxy overdensities. The depth of the OACDF and its relatively large spatial coverage with respect to pencil beam surveys make it a good tool for further studies of galaxy formation and evolution in the redshift range 0–1, as well as for stellar studies.