Monitoring the photometric behavior of OmegaCAM with Astro-WISE

TL;DR

This paper describes the use of the Astro-WISE system to monitor and analyze the photometric stability of OmegaCAM on the VLT Survey Telescope, aiming for high photometric homogeneity in the KiDS survey.

Contribution

It introduces the photometric monitoring procedures in Astro-WISE and provides initial insights into OmegaCAM's photometric behavior over time.

Findings

Expected 1-2% photometric homogeneity for KiDS

Long-term monitoring aligns with survey production

OmegaCAM's photometric stability assessed over first year

Abstract

The OmegaCAM wide-field optical imager is the sole instrument on the VLT Survey Telescope at ESO's Paranal Observatory. The instrument, as well as the telescope, have been designed for surveys with very good, natural seeing-limited image quality over a 1 square degree field. OmegaCAM was commissioned in 2011 and has been observing three ESO Public Surveys in parallel since October 15, 2011. We use the Astro-WISE information system to monitor the calibration of the observatory and to produce the Kilo Degree Survey (KiDS). Here we describe the photometric monitoring procedures in Astro-WISE and give a first impression of OmegaCAM's photometric behavior as a function of time. The long-term monitoring of the observatory goes hand in hand with the KiDS survey production in Astro-WISE. KiDS is observed under partially non-photometric conditions. Based on the first year of OmegaCAM operations it is expected that a $\sim 1%-2%$ photometric homogeneity will be achieved for KiDS.