Abstract
The ESO public survey “VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea” (VVV) started mapping the inner disk and bulge of our Galaxy with the VISTA 4m telescope in the near-IR in 2010. The planned survey area of 520 deg2 is observed in the Z, Y, J, H and Ks filters, and in addition more than 100 epochs of repeated imaging in Ks will be collected over ∼5 years. The final products will be a deep near-IR atlas in five passbands, and catalogue of more than a million variable sources. This public survey will provide data available to the whole community and therefore will enable further studies of the history of the Milky Way, its star cluster evolution, and the population census of the Galactic Bulge and center, as well as the investigations of the star formation regions in the disk.
Highlights
The planned survey area of 520 deg2 is observed in the Z, Y, J, H and Ks filters, and in addition more than 100 epochs of repeated imaging in Ks will be collected over ∼5 years
The observing strategy includes a full pass of the survey area in year 1 (2010) in all five filters: Z, Y, J, H, and Ks, spanning 0.9-2.5 m, to magnitude limits of 20.5, 20, 20, 19 and 18 mag, respectively
The VVV photometric limit is about four magnitudes deeper than 2MASS in J, H and Ks filters and it adds two more bands
Summary
The observing strategy includes a full pass of the survey area in year 1 (2010) in all five filters: Z, Y, J, H, and Ks, spanning 0.9-2.5 m, to magnitude limits of 20.5, 20, 20, 19 and 18 mag, respectively. The ESO public survey “VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea” (VVV) started mapping the inner disk and bulge of our Galaxy with the VISTA 4m telescope in the near-IR in 2010.
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