Abstract
The FORS Deep Field project is a multi-colour, multi-object spectroscopic investigation of an approx. 7 times 7 region near the south galactic pole based mostly on observations carried out with the FORS instruments attached to the VLT telescopes. It includes the QSO Q 0103-260 (z = 3.36). The goal of this study is to improve our understanding of the formation and evolution of galaxies in the young Universe. In this paper the field selection, the photometric observations, and the data reduction are described. The source detection and photometry of objects in the FORS Deep Field is discussed in detail. A combined B and I selected UBgRIJKs photometric catalog of 8753 objects in the FDF is presented and its properties are briefly discussed. The formal 50% completeness limits for point sources, derived from the co-added images, are 25.64, 27.69, 26.86, 26.68, 26.37, 23.60 and 21.57 in U, B, g, R, I, J and Ks (Vega-system), respectively. A comparison of the number counts in the FORS Deep Field to those derived in other deep field surveys shows very good agreement.
Highlights
Deep field studies have become one of the most powerful tools to explore galaxy evolution over a wide redshift range
The FORS Deep Field project is a multi-colour, multi-object spectroscopic investigation of a ∼7 × 7 region near the south galactic pole based mostly on observations carried out with the FORS instruments attached to the VLT telescopes
The source detection and photometry of objects in the FORS Deep Field is discussed in detail
Summary
Deep field studies have become one of the most powerful tools to explore galaxy evolution over a wide redshift range. Examples are the NTT SUSI Deep Field (NTTDF, Arnouts et al 1996), which has a size similar to the HDFs and subarcsecond resolution, but is a few magnitudes less deep than the HDFs, or the William Herschel Deep Field (WHTDF, Metcalfe et al 2001 and references therein), which has a much larger field of view, a depth comparable to the HDFs, but lacks subarcsecond resolution. Initial results have been described in Appenzeller et al (2002), Mehlert et al (2001, 2002), Noll et al (2001) and Ziegler et al (2002)
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