The VISTA near-infrared YJKs public survey of the Magellanic Clouds System (VMC)

Abstract

The VISTA public survey project VMC targets the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Small Magellanic Cloud, the Bridge and two fields in the Stream. The VMC survey is a uniform and homogeneous survey in the Y, J and Ks near-infrared filters. The main goals are the determination of the star formation history and the three-dimensional structure of the Magellanic system. The survey is therefore designed to reach stars as faint as the oldest main sequence turn-off point and to constrain the mean magnitude of pulsating variable stars such as RR Lyrae and Cepheids. We provide a brief overview of the survey strategy and first science results. Further details are given in Cioni et al. (2011)