Deep radio observations at 1.4GHz for the Extended Chandra Deep Field South
were performed in June through September of 2007 and presented in a first data
release (Miller et al. 2008). The survey was made using six separate pointings
of the Very Large Array (VLA) with over 40 hours of observation per pointing.
In the current paper, we improve on the data reduction to produce a second data
release (DR2) mosaic image. This DR2 image covers an area of about a third of a
square degree and reaches a best rms sensitivity of 6 uJy and has a typical
sensitivity of 7.4 uJy per 2.8" by 1.6" beam. We also present a more
comprehensive catalog, including sources down to peak flux densities of five or
more times the local rms noise along with information on source sizes and
relevant pointing data. We discuss in some detail the consideration of whether
sources are resolved under the complication of a radio image created as a
mosaic of separate pointings each suffering some degree of bandwidth smearing,
and the accurate evaluation of the flux densities of such sources. Finally, the
radio morphologies and optical/near-IR counterpart identifications (Bonzini et
al. 2012) are used to identify 17 likely multiple-component sources and arrive
at a catalog of 883 radio sources, which is roughly double the number of
sources contained in the first data release.Comment: to appear in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series; 41 page