Issue |
A&A
Volume 442, Number 2, November I 2005
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | 423 - 436 | |
Section | Cosmology (including clusters of galaxies) | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20052993 | |
Published online | 07 October 2005 |
The VIRMOS deep imaging survey
IV. Near-infrared observations
1
INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Via Brera 28, Milan, Italy e-mail: iovino@brera.mi.astro.it
2
Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, UMR 7095, 98 bis Bvd Arago, 75014 Paris, France
3
Observatoire de Paris, LERMA, 61 Avenue de l'Observatoire, 75014 Paris, France
4
IASF-INAF, via Bassini 15, 20133 Milano, Italy
5
Laboratoire d'Astropysique de Marseile, UMR 6110 CNRS-Université de Provence, BP 8, 13376 Marseille Cedex 12, France
6
INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna, via Ranzani 1, 40127 Bologna, Italy
7
INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte, via Moiariello 16, 80131 Napoli, Italy
8
IRA-INAF – Via Gobetti 101, 40129 Bologna, Italy
9
Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de l'Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées (UMR 5572), 14 avenue E. Belin, 31400 Toulouse, France
10
Università di Bologna, Dipartimento di Astronomia, Via Ranzani 1, 40127 Bologna, Italy
11
Max Planck Institut fur Astrophysik, 85741 Garching, Germany
12
European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2, 85748 Garching bei Munchen, Germany
13
Universitá di Milano-Bicocca, Dipartimento di Fisica, Piazza delle Scienze 3, 20126 Milano, Italy
Received:
4
March
2005
Accepted:
20
July
2005
In this paper we present a new deep, wide-field
near-infrared imaging survey. Our J- and K-band observations in
four separate fields (0226-04, 2217+00, 1003+02, 1400+05) complement
optical BVRI, ultraviolet and spectroscopic observations
undertaken as part of the VIMOS-VLT deep survey (VVDS). In total,
our survey spans ~. Our catalogues are
reliable in all fields to at least
and
(defined as the magnitude where object contamination is less than
10% and completeness greater than 90%).
Taken together these four fields represents a unique combination of
depth, wavelength coverage and area. Most importantly, our survey
regions span a broad range of right ascension and declination which
allow us to make a robust estimate of the effects of cosmic
variance. We describe the complete data reduction process from raw
observations to the construction of source lists and outline a
comprehensive series of tests carried out to characterise the
reliability of the final catalogues. From simulations we determine
the completeness function of each final stacked image, and estimate
the fraction of spurious sources in each magnitude bin. We compare
the statistical properties of our catalogues with literature
compilations. We find that our J- and K-selected galaxy counts
are in good agreement with previously published works, as are our
versus K colour–magnitude diagrams. Stellar number counts
extracted from our fields are consistent with a synthetic model of
our galaxy. Using the location of the stellar locus in
colour-magnitude space and the measured field-to-field variation in
galaxy number counts we demonstrate that the absolute
accuracy of our photometric calibration is at the
level or
better. Finally, an investigation of the angular clustering of
K-selected extended sources in our survey displays the expected
scaling behaviour with limiting magnitude, with amplitudes in each
magnitude bin in broad agreement with literature values.
In summary, these catalogues will be an excellent tool to
investigate the properties of near-infrared selected galaxies, and
such investigations will be the subject of several articles
currently in preparation.
Key words: infrared: galaxies / galaxies: general / surveys / cosmology: large-scale structure of Universe
© ESO, 2005
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