The Palomar Transient Factory photometric catalog 1.0

TL;DR

This paper presents a calibrated photometric catalog from the Palomar Transient Factory, covering 21 million sources over 11233 deg^2 with high accuracy, serving as a reference for photometric calibration.

Contribution

It provides the first version of a large, accurate, and calibrated photometric catalog from PTF, including magnitudes for non-variable sources and plans for future enhancements.

Findings

Catalog contains 21 million sources brighter than magnitude 19.

Magnitudes have typical accuracy of 0.02 mag compared to SDSS.

Median repeatability of 0.01 mag for stars between 15-16 mag.

Abstract

We construct a photometrically calibrated catalog of non-variable sources from the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) observations. The first version of this catalog presented here, the PTF photometric catalog 1.0, contains calibrated R_PTF-filter magnitudes for about 21 million sources brighter than magnitude 19, over an area of about 11233 deg^2. The magnitudes are provided in the PTF photometric system, and the color of a source is required in order to convert these magnitudes into other magnitude systems. We estimate that the magnitudes in this catalog have typical accuracy of about 0.02 mag with respect to magnitudes from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The median repeatability of our catalog's magnitudes for stars between 15 and 16 mag, is about 0.01 mag, and it is better than 0.03 mag for 95% of the sources in this magnitude range. The main goal of this catalog is to provide reference magnitudes for photometric calibration of visible light observations. Subsequent versions of this catalog, which will be published incrementally online, will be extended to a larger sky area and will also include g_PTF-filter magnitudes, as well as variability and proper motion information.