The Star Formation Across Cosmic Time (SFACT) Survey. II. The First Catalog from a New Narrow-Band Survey for Emission-Line Objects

TL;DR

The SFACT survey uses narrowband imaging to detect faint emission-line galaxies and QSOs across a broad redshift range, providing a new catalog with detailed photometry and flux measurements.

Contribution

This paper introduces the first catalog from the SFACT survey, demonstrating a new automated method for selecting emission-line candidates over a wide area.

Findings

Detected 533 emission-line candidates in 1.50 sq. degrees

Achieved detection of ELGs down to r = 25.0

Survey sensitivity limits line flux to ~1.0 x 10^16 erg/s/cm^2

Abstract

Star Formation Across Cosmic Time (SFACT) is a new narrowband survey designed to detect faint emission-line galaxies and QSOs over a broad range of redshifts. Here we present the first list of SFACT candidates from our pilot-study fields. Using the WIYN 3.5m telescope, we are able to achieve good image quality with excellent depth and routinely detect ELGs to r = 25.0. The limiting line flux of the survey is ~1.0 x 10^16 erg/s/cm^2. SFACT targets three primary emission lines: H-alpha, [O III]5007, and [O II]3727. The corresponding redshift windows allow for the detection of objects at z ~ 0-1. With a coverage of 1.50 square degrees in our three pilot-study fields, a total of 533 SFACT candidates have been detected (355 candidates per square degree). We detail the process by which these candidates are selected in an efficient and primarily automated manner, then tabulate accurate coordinates, broadband photometry, and narrowband fluxes for each source.