We describe the construction of a catalogue of galaxies in the optical field
of the Hubble Deep Field South. The HDF-S observations produced WFPC2 images in
U, B, V, and I, the version 1 data have been made public on 23 November 1999.
The effective field of view is 4.38 arcmin2, and the 5Ο limiting
magnitudes (in a FWHM aperture) are 28.87, 29.71, 30.19, 29.58 in the U, B, V
and I bands, respectively. We created a catalogue for each pass-band
(I814β, V606β, B450β, U300β), using simulations to account for
incompleteness and spurious sources contamination. Along with photometry in all
bands, we determined on the I814β-selected catalogue (I814β<26)
structural parameters, such as a metric apparent size, derived from the
petrosian radius, an asymmetry index, light concentration indexes and the mean
surface brightness within the petrosian radius.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures. Accepted for publication in A&ASS. The catalog
is available in the source and at
http://www.merate.mi.astro.it/~saracco/science.htm