PINGS: the PPAK IFS Nearby Galaxies Survey

TL;DR

The PINGS survey provides comprehensive 2D spectroscopic data of 17 nearby disk galaxies, enabling detailed studies of their astrophysical properties across entire galaxy surfaces.

Contribution

This work introduces the first continuous coverage spectral mapping of entire galaxy surfaces, with a large dataset of over 50,000 spectra from 17 galaxies.

Findings

First to obtain continuous spectral coverage of entire galaxy surfaces.

A dataset of over 50,000 spectra covering 80 arcmin^2.

Initial scientific insights into galaxy properties.

Abstract

We present the PPAK Integral Field Spectroscopy (IFS) Nearby Galaxies Survey: PINGS, a 2-dimensional spectroscopic mosaicking of 17 nearby disk galaxies in the optical wavelength range. This project represents the first attempt to obtain continuous coverage spectra of the whole surface of a galaxy in the nearby universe. The final data set comprises more than 50000 individual spectra, covering in total an observed area of nearly 80 arcmin^2. In this paper we describe the main astrophysical issues to be addressed by the PINGS project, we present the galaxy sample and explain the observing strategy, the data reduction process and all uncertainties involved. Additionally, we give some scientific highlights extracted from the first analysis of the PINGS sample.