DENIS: Source Extractions

DENIS (Deep Near Infrared Survey of the Southern Sky) surveys the entire southern sky in 3 colours, namely in the I band at a wavelength of 0.8 micron, in the 1.25-micron J band, and in the 2.15-micron K' band. The sensitivity limits will be 18th magnitude in the I band, 16th in the J band, and 14.5th in the K' band. The angular resolution achieved is 1 arcsecond in the I band, and 3.0 arcseconds in the J and K' bands. The European Southern Observatory 1-m telescope on La Silla is dedicated to the survey use during operations expected to last four years, commencing in late 1993. The first test/ commissioning run took place at the Hoher List Observatory in the month of August. We present here an impression of the data quality and data gathering capability of the survey instrument to provide an estimate of the surveying characteristics for this 4 terabyte database from which a possible 100 million infrared sources will/can be extracted

DENIS---DEep Near Infrared Survey of the Southern Sky

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