Another unWISE Update: The Deepest Ever Full-sky Maps at 3-5 microns

TL;DR

This paper presents the creation of the deepest full-sky infrared maps at 3-5 microns by reprocessing extensive WISE and NEOWISE data, significantly enhancing observational coverage for various astrophysical applications.

Contribution

It introduces a new, uniformly reprocessed set of full-sky maps at 3-5 microns with four times more coverage than previous datasets, enabling advanced astronomical studies.

Findings

Deepest full-sky maps at 3-5 microns created

Maps include ~4 years of observations, increasing coverage

Publicly available maps facilitate target selection for DESI

Abstract

We have uniformly reprocessed ~140 terabytes of WISE and NEOWISE exposures to create the deepest ever full-sky maps at 3.4 microns (W1) and 4.6 microns (W2). Our coadds include ~4 years of observations and therefore feature ~4 times greater integer frame coverage than the AllWISE Atlas stacks. Our new, publicly available maps should find a wide range of applications, and in particular will enable the selection of luminous red galaxy and quasar targets for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI).