COSMIC-S: a photometric Catalogue of Observed Stars in the Small MagellanIc Cloud

TL;DR

COSMIC-S is a comprehensive photometric catalogue of nearly 11 million stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud, created using DECam data and PSF photometry, providing high-quality gri magnitudes for astrophysical studies.

Contribution

This work presents the first extensive, high-precision photometric catalogue of the SMC based on DECam data, including detailed photometry and completeness analysis.

Findings

Catalogue contains nearly 11 million sources with gri photometry.

Mean photometric error is approximately 0.04 mag.

Catalogue is complete to magnitude 22, with a limit around 25 mag.

Abstract

The Dark Energy Camera (DECam) is a wide-field instrument mounted on the 4m V. Blanco Telescope (CTIO). Its impressive technical characteristics makes it one of the most suitable ground-based telescope for the production of accurate stellar photometry even towards crowded regions such as the Magellanic Clouds. We analysed DECam images acquired from February 2018 to January 2020 towards the Small Magellanic Cloud. We performed a PSF photometry by using the SExtractor and PSFEx tools and producing a comprehensive photometric catalogue in the SDSS system, considering the $gri$ filters. Then, we present COSMIC-S, a photometric catalogue consisting of 10 971 906 sources, including $gri$ magnitudes with a mean error $<\sigma_m> \simeq 0.04$ mag. A total of 2 456 434 sources have good photometry in all three bands. The catalogue appears virtually complete to $m \simeq 22$, with a limiting magnitude $m\simeq 25$. We derived the colour-magnitude and colour-colour diagrams in order to prove the goodness of the catalogue.