ESO imaging survey: optical deep public survey ^*,**

¹ Dipartimento di Astronomia, Universita' di Bologna, via Ranzani 1, 40126 Bologna, Italy e-mail: amignano@ira.inaf.it
² European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 2, 85748 Garching b. München, Germany
³ INAF - Istituto di Radioastronomia, Via Gobetti 101, 40129 Bologna, Italy
⁴ Tècniques d'Avantguarda, Avda. Carlemany 75, 700 Les Escaldes, Andorra
⁵ Observatorio Nacional, Rua Gel. Jose Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, R. J., Brazil
⁶ Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, Laboratoire Cassiopée, BP4229, 06304 Nice Cedex 4, France
⁷ Dark Cosmology Centre, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Juliane Maries Vej 30, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
⁸ Laboratoire d'astrophysique de Marseille, Traverse du Siphon, BP 8, 13376 Marseille Cedex 12, France
⁹ Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana, Campus Universitário, Feira de Santana, BA, Brazil
¹⁰ Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, via G. B. Tiepolo 11, 34131 Trieste, Italy

Received: 16 February 2006
Accepted: 19 October 2006

Abstract

This paper presents new five passbands (UBVRI) optical wide-field imaging data accumulated as part of the DEEP Public Survey (DPS) carried out as a public survey by the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) project. Out of the 3 square degrees originally proposed, the survey covers 2.75 square degrees, in at least one band (normally R), and 1.00 square degrees in five passbands. The median seeing, as measured in the final stacked images, is , ranging from to . The median limiting magnitudes (AB system, 2´´ aperture, detection limit) are , , , and  mag, consistent with those proposed in the original survey design. The paper describes the observations and data reduction using the EIS Data Reduction System and its associated EIS/MVM library. The quality of the individual images were inspected, bad images discarded and the remaining used to produce final image stacks in each passband, from which sources have been extracted. Finally, the scientific quality of these final images and associated catalogs was assessed qualitatively by visual inspection and quantitatively by comparison of statistical measures derived from these data with those of other authors as well as model predictions, and from direct comparison with the results obtained from the reduction of the same dataset using an independent (hands-on) software system. Finally to illustrate one application of this survey, the results of a preliminary effort to identify sub-mJy radio sources are reported. To the limiting magnitude reached in the R and I passbands the success rate ranges from 66 to 81% (depending on the fields). These data are publicly available at CDS.