ESO for GOODS' sake

Currently public ESO data sets pertinent to the CDFS/GOODS field are briefly illustrated along with an indication on how to get access to them. Future ESO plans for complementing the GOODS database with optical/IR imaging and optical spectroscopy are also described.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the ESO/USM Workshop "The Mass of Galaxies at Low and High Redshift" (Venice, Italy, October 2001), eds. R. Bender and A. Renzin

ESO Imaging Survey: infrared observations of CDF-S and HDF-S

This paper presents infrared data obtained from observations carried out at the ESO 3.5m New Technology Telescope (NTT) of the Hubble Deep Field South (HDF-S) and the Chandra Deep Field South (CDF-S). These data were taken as part of the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) program, a public survey conducted by ESO to promote follow-up observations with the VLT. In the HDF-S field the infrared observations cover an area of ~53 square arcmin, encompassing the HST WFPC2 and STIS fields, in the JHKs passbands. The seeing measured in the final stacked images ranges from 0.79" to 1.22" and the median limiting magnitudes (AB system, 2" aperture, 5sigma detection limit) are J_AB~23.0, H_AB~22.8 and K_AB~23.0 mag. Less complete data are also available in JKs for the adjacent HST NICMOS field. For CDF-S, the infrared observations cover a total area of \~100 square arcmin, reaching median limiting magnitudes (as defined above) of J_AB~23.6 and K_AB~22.7 mag. For one CDF-S field H-band data are also available. This paper describes the observations and presents the results of new reductions carried out entirely through the un-supervised, high-throughput EIS Data Reduction System and its associated EIS/MVM C++-based image processing library developed, over the past 5 years, by the EIS project and now publicly available. The paper also presents source catalogs extracted from the final co-added images which are used to evaluate the scientific quality of the survey products, and hence the performance of the software. This is done comparing the results obtained in the present work with those obtained by other authors from independent data and/or reductions carried out with different software packages and techniques. The final science-grade catalogs and co-added images are available at CDS.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A, 13 pages, 12 figures; a full resolution version of the paper is available from http://www.astro.ku.dk/~lisbeth/eisdata/papers/4528.pdf ; related catalogs and images are available through http://www.astro.ku.dk/~lisbeth/eisdata

The circumstellar envelope of IRC+10216 from milli-arcsecond to arcmin scales

Aims.Analysis of the innermost regions of the carbon-rich star IRC+10216 and of the outer layers of its circumstellar envelope have been performed in order to constrain its mass-loss history. Methods: .We analyzed the high dynamic range of near-infrared adaptive optics and the deep V-band images of the circumstellar envelope of IRC+10216 using high angular resolution, collected with the VLT/NACO and FORS1 instruments. Results: .From the near-infrared observations, we present maps of the sub-arcsecond structures, or clumps, in the innermost regions. The morphology of these clumps is found to strongly vary from J- to L-band. Their relative motion appears to be more complex than proposed in earlier works: they can be weakly accelerated, have a constant velocity, or even be motionless with respect to one another. From V-band imaging, we present a high spatial resolution map of the shell distribution in the outer layers of IRC+10216. Shells are resolved well up to a distance of about 90'' to the core of the nebula and most of them appear to be composed of thinner elongated shells. Finally, by combining the NACO and FORS1 images, a global view is present to show both the extended layers and the bipolar core of the nebula together with the real size of the inner clumps. Conclusions: .This study confirms the rather complex nature of the IRC+10216 circumstellar environment. In particular, the coexistence at different spatial scales of structures with very different morphologies (clumps, bipolarity, and almost spherical external layers) is very puzzling. This confirms that the formation of AGB winds is far more complex than usually assumed in current models.Comment: Published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2006, 455, 18

ESO Imaging Survey. The Stellar Catalogue in the Chandra Deep Field South

(abridged) Stellar catalogues in five passbands (UBVRI) over an area of approximately 0.3 deg^2, comprising about 1200 objects, and in seven passbands (UBVRIJK) over approximately 0.1 deg^2, comprising about 400 objects, in the direction of the Chandra Deep Field South are presented. The 90% completeness level of the number counts is reached at approximately U = 23.8, B = 24.0, V = 23.5, R = 23.0, I = 21.0, J = 20.5, K = 19.0. A scheme is presented to select point sources from these catalogues, by combining the SExtractor parameter CLASS_STAR from all available passbands. Probable QSOs and unresolved galaxies are identified by using the previously developed \chi^2-technique (Hatziminaoglou et al 2002), that fits the overall spectral energy distributions to template spectra and determines the best fitting template. The observed number counts, colour-magnitude diagrams, colour-colour diagrams and colour distributions are presented and, to judge the quality of the data, compared to simulations based on the predictions of a Galactic Model convolved with the estimated completeness functions and the error model used to describe the photometric errors of the data. The resulting stellar catalogues and the objects identified as likely QSOs and unresolved galaxies with coordinates, observed magnitudes with errors and assigned spectral types by the $\chi^2$-technique are presented and are publicly available.Comment: Paper as it will appear in print. Complete figures and tables can be obtained from: http://www.eso.org/science/eis/eis_pub/eis_pub.html. Astronomy & Astrophysics, accepted for publicatio

ESO Imaging Survey: Optical follow-up of 12 selected XMM-Newton fields

(Abridged) This paper presents the data recently released for the XMM-Newton/WFI survey carried out as part of the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) project. The aim of this survey is to provide optical imaging follow-up data in BVRI for identification of serendipitously detected X-ray sources in selected XMM-Newton fields. In this paper, fully calibrated individual and stacked images of 12 fields as well as science-grade catalogs for the 8 fields located at high-galactic latitude are presented. The data covers an area of \sim 3 square degrees for each of the four passbands. The median limiting magnitudes (AB system, 2" aperture, 5\sigma detection limit) are 25.20, 24.92, 24.66, and 24.39 mag for B-, V-, R-, and I-band, respectively. These survey products, together with their logs, are available to the community for science exploitation in conjunction with their X-ray counterparts. Preliminary results from the X-ray/optical cross-correlation analysis show that about 61% of the detected X-ray point sources in deep XMM-Newton exposures have at least one optical counterpart within 2" radius down to R \simeq 25 mag, 50% of which are so faint as to require VLT observations thereby meeting one of the top requirements of the survey, namely to produce large samples for spectroscopic follow-up with the VLT, whereas only 15% of the objects have counterparts down to the DSS limiting magnitude.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Accompanying data releases available at http://archive.eso.org/archive/public_datasets.html (WFI images), http://www.eso.org/science/eis/surveys/release_65000025_XMM.html (optical catalogs), http://www.aip.de/groups/xray/XMM_EIS/ (X-ray data). Full resolution version available at http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dietrich/publications/3785.ps.g

A Public, K-Selected, Optical-to-Near-Infrared Catalog of the Extended Chandra Deep Field South (ECDFS) from the MUltiwavelength Survey by Yale-Chile (MUSYC)

We present a new K-selected, optical-to-near-infrared photometric catalog of the Extended Chandra Deep Field South (ECDFS), making it publicly available to the astronomical community. The dataset is founded on publicly available imaging, supplemented by original zJK imaging data obtained as part of the MUltiwavelength Survey by Yale-Chile (MUSYC). The final photometric catalog consists of photometry derived from nine band U-K imaging covering the full 0.5x0.5 sq. deg. of the ECDFS, plus H band data for approximately 80% of the field. The 5sigma flux limit for point-sources is K = 22.0 (AB). This is also the nominal completeness and reliability limit of the catalog: the empirical completeness for 21.75 < K < 22.00 is 85+%. We have verified the quality of the catalog through both internal consistency checks, and comparisons to other existing and publicly available catalogs. As well as the photometric catalog, we also present catalogs of photometric redshifts and restframe photometry derived from the ten band photometry. We have collected robust spectroscopic redshift determinations from published sources for 1966 galaxies in the catalog. Based on these sources, we have achieved a (1sigma) photometric redshift accuracy of Dz/(1+z) = 0.036, with an outlier fraction of 7.8%. Most of these outliers are X-ray sources. Finally, we describe and release a utility for interpolating restframe photometry from observed SEDs, dubbed InterRest. Particularly in concert with the wealth of already publicly available data in the ECDFS, this new MUSYC catalog provides an excellent resource for studying the changing properties of the massive galaxy population at z < 2. (Abridged)Comment: Re-submitted to ApJSS after a first referee report. 27 pages, 17 figures. MUSYC data is freely available from http://astro.yale.edu/MUSYC . Links to phot-z and restframe photometry catalogs, as well as to InterRest access and documentation, including a full walkthrough, can be found at http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~ent

ESO Imaging Survey. Deep Public Survey: Multi-Color Optical Data for the Chandra Deep Field South

This paper presents multi-passband optical data obtained from observations of the Chandra Deep Field South (CDF-S), located at alpha ~ 3h 32m, delta ~ -27d 48m. The observations were conducted at the ESO/MPG 2.2m telescope at La Silla using the 8kx8k Wide-Field Imager (WFI). This data set, taken over a period of one year, represents the first field to be completed by the ongoing Deep Public Survey (DPS) being carried out by the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) project. This paper describes the optical observations, the techniques employed for un-supervised pipeline processing and the general characteristics of the final data set. The paper includes data taken in six different filters U'UBVRI. The data cover an area of about 0.25 square degrees reaching 5 sigma limiting magnitudes of U'_AB=26.0, U_AB=25.7, B_AB=26.4$, V_AB=25.4, R_AB=25.5 and I_AB= 24.7 mag, as measured within a 2xFWHM aperture. The optical data covers the area of ~ 0.1Comment: 13 pages, 19 postscript figures, Figure 3,4,7,10 are available in jpeg format, use aa.cls style. The full postscript of the paper is available at http://www.eso.org/science/eis/eis_pub/eis_pub.htm

Pre-FLAMES Survey: Observations of Selected Stellar Fields

This paper presents the first set of fully calibrated images and associated stellar catalogs of the Pre-FLAMES survey being carried out by the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) project. The primary goal of this survey is to provide the ESO community with data sets from which suitable target lists can be extracted for follow-up observations with the new VLT facility FLAMES. For this purpose 160 stellar fields have been selected for observations in B, V and I using the 8kx8k Wide Field Imager (WFI) at the MPG/ESO 2.2 m telescope at La Silla. These data have been used to assess the observing strategy adopted and to define suitable reduction techniques and procedures for the preparation of input catalogs for FLAMES. The images and catalogs presented here are publicly available and can be requested from the URL address ``http://www.eso.org/eis''.Comment: 18 pages, 28 figures available in gif format. The postscript version of the paper with all the figures encapsulated is available at http://www.eso.org/science/eis/eis_pub/eis_pub.html. Astronomy & Astrophysics, accepte