OMCat: Catalogue of Serendipitous Sources Detected with the XMM-Newton Optical Monitor

TL;DR

The OMCat catalog compiles serendipitous sources detected by the XMM-Newton Optical Monitor, providing a valuable resource for multi-wavelength studies and UV spectroscopy of known objects.

Contribution

This work presents the first comprehensive catalog of sources detected by the XMM-Newton Optical Monitor, covering 0.5% of the sky with detailed UV/optical data.

Findings

Contains entries for sources in 2950 XMM-Newton fields

Most sources have optical counterparts, not new detections

Enables extension of spectral energy distributions into UV

Abstract

The Optical Monitor Catalogue of serendipitous sources (OMCat) contains entries for every source detected in the publicly available XMM-Newton Optical Monitor (OM) images taken in either the imaging or ``fast'' modes. Since the OM is coaligned and records data simultaneously with the X-ray telescopes on XMM-Newton, it typically produces images in one or more near-UV/optical bands for every pointing of the observatory. As of the beginning of 2006, the public archive had covered roughly 0.5% of the sky in 2950 fields. The OMCat is not dominated by sources previously undetected at other wavelengths; the bulk of objects have optical counterparts. However, the OMCat can be used to extend optical or X-ray spectral energy distributions for known objects into the ultraviolet, to study at higher angular resolution objects detected with GALEX, or to find high-Galactic-latitude objects of interest for UV spectroscopy.