DustPedia: Multiwavelength photometry and imagery of 875 nearby galaxies in 42 ultraviolet-microwave bands^⋆

¹ School of Physics & Astronomy, Cardiff University, Queen’s Buildings, The Parade, Cardiff CF24 3AA, UK
e-mail: Christopher.Clark@astro.cf.ac.uk
² Sterrenkundig Observatorium, Universiteit Gent, Krijgslaan 281 S9, 9000 Gent, Belgium
³ INAF, Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Largo E. Fermi 5, 50125 Florence, Italy
⁴ Instituto de Radioastronomía y Astrofísica, UNAM, Campus Morelia, AP 3-72, 58089 Michoacán, Mexico
⁵ Centre for Astrophysics Research, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield AL10 9AB, UK
⁶ National Observatory of Athens, Institute for Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications and Remote Sensing, Ioannou Metaxa and Vasileos Pavlou, 15236 Athens, Greece
⁷ Department of Physics & Astronomy, University College London Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
⁸ Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale, UMR 8617, CNRS, Université Paris Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, Université Paris Sud, 91405 Orsay, France
⁹ European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzchild-Str, 85748 Garching, Germany
¹⁰ CEA/DSM/IRFU/Service d’Astrophysique, Astrophysique des Interactions Multi-eschelles UMR 7158, CEA, Saclay, Orme des Merisiers, Bâtiment 709, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
¹¹ St. Petersburg State University, Universitetskij Pr. 28, 198504 St. Petersburg, Stary Peterhof, Russia
¹² Central Astronomical Observatory of RAS, Pulkovskoye Chaussee 65/1, 196140 St. Petersburg, Russia

Received: 22 June 2017
Accepted: 14 August 2017

Abstract

Aims. The DustPedia project is capitalising on the legacy of the Herschel Space Observatory, using cutting-edge modelling techniques to study dust in the 875 DustPedia galaxies – representing the vast majority of extended galaxies within 3000 km s^-1 that were observed by Herschel. This work requires a database of multiwavelength imagery and photometry that greatly exceeds the scope (in terms of wavelength coverage and number of galaxies) of any previous local-Universe survey.

Methods. We constructed a database containing our own custom Herschel reductions, along with standardised archival observations from GALEX, SDSS, DSS, 2MASS, WISE, Spitzer, and Planck. Using these data, we performed consistent aperture-matched photometry, which we combined with external supplementary photometry from IRAS and Planck.

Results. We present our multiwavelength imagery and photometry across 42 UV-microwave bands for the 875 DustPedia galaxies. Our aperture-matched photometry, combined with the external supplementary photometry, represents a total of 21 857 photometric measurements. A typical DustPedia galaxy has multiwavelength photometry spanning 25 bands. We also present the Comprehensive & Adaptable Aperture Photometry Routine (CAAPR), the pipeline we developed to carry out our aperture-matched photometry. CAAPR is designed to produce consistent photometry for the enormous range of galaxy and observation types in our data. In particular, CAAPR is able to determine robust cross-compatible uncertainties, thanks to a novel method for reliably extrapolating the aperture noise for observations that cover a very limited amount of background. Our rich database of imagery and photometry is being made available to the community.