OmegaWINGS: OmegaCAM@VST observations of WINGS galaxy clusters

TL;DR

This paper presents new wide-field optical observations of 46 galaxy clusters from the WINGS survey using OmegaCAM/VST, providing high-quality photometric data crucial for galaxy cluster studies.

Contribution

It introduces the OmegaCAM/VST B and V-band observations of WINGS clusters, including data reduction, quality assessment, and publicly available photometric catalogs.

Findings

Median seeing of 1 arcsecond in both bands

Reaching 50% completeness at V=23.1 mag

High astrometric and photometric accuracy verified

Abstract

The Wide-field Nearby Galaxy-cluster Survey (WINGS) is a wide-field multi-wavelength survey of X-ray selected clusters at z =0.04-0.07. The original 34'x34' WINGS field-of- view has now been extended to cover a 1 sq.deg field with both photometry and spectroscopy. In this paper we present the Johnson B and V-band OmegaCAM/VST observations of 46 WINGS clusters, together with the data reduction, data quality and Sextractor photometric catalogs. With a median seeing of 1arcs in both bands, our 25-minutes exposures in each band typically reach the 50% completeness level at V=23.1 mag. The quality of the astrometric and photometric accuracy has been verified by comparison with the 2MASS as well as with SDSS astrometry, and SDSS and previous WINGS imaging. Star/galaxy separation and sky-subtraction procedure have been tested comparing with previous WINGS data. The Sextractor photometric catalogues are publicly available at the CDS, and will be included in the next release of the WINGS database on the VO together with the OmegaCAM reduced images. These data form the basis for a large ongoing spectroscopic campaign with AAOmega/AAT and is being employed for a variety of studies. [abridged]