HECATEv2: An all-sky galaxy catalogue for multimessenger astrophysics

TL;DR

HECATEv2 is a comprehensive all-sky galaxy catalogue with extensive photometric, spectroscopic, and derived data, designed to support multimessenger astrophysics research.

Contribution

This work provides a significantly upgraded, multi-wavelength galaxy catalogue with improved data quality, expanded coverage, and new derived parameters, enhancing its utility for astrophysical studies.

Findings

Includes 204,733 galaxies with detailed photometry and classifications.

Provides stellar masses, star-formation rates, and metallicities for most galaxies.

Offers spatial completeness maps and broad coverage compared to other catalogues.

Abstract

We present HECATEv2, the second release of the Heraklion Extragalactic Catalogue (HECATE), an all-sky, value-added galaxy catalogue comprising 204733 galaxies from the HyperLEDA database with recession velocity <14000 km/s (D~200 Mpc). This release focuses on qualitative upgrades of the provided information while maintaining the same parent galaxy sample as HECATEv1. Improvements include a new cosmology-based distance framework, expanded and homogenised optical and mid-infrared photometry from SDSS-DR17/NSA, PS1-DR2, and AllWISE, and new quality-control flags for stellar contamination, incorrect photometry, and coordinate inconsistencies. We also extend the galaxy-size coverage and derive stellar population parameters for a substantially larger fraction of the sample. Star-formation rates (SFR) and stellar masses (Mstar) are now available for >70% of galaxies using updated mid-IR/optical calibrations that account for stellar population age and dust attenuation, while gas-phase metallicities are derived for ~90%. Activity classifications are provided for >50% of galaxies based on spectroscopic and/or photometric diagnostics, and supermassive black hole masses for ~86%. In terms of L$_{B}$,L$_{Ks}$,SFR, and Mstar, HECATEv2 is among the most complete local-Universe catalogues with spectroscopic redshifts. We also provide spatial completeness maps as a function of distance and luminosity, highlighting variations across the sky. Compared to other catalogues (e.g. GLADE+, NED-LVS), HECATEv2 offers broader (optical, near- and far-IR photometry, metallicity, activity classifications) or comparable (mid-IR photometry, SFR, Mstar) coverage, making it a robust reference for studies of SMBH-host galaxy connections, gravitational-wave and high-energy transient hosts, population analyses, and rare galaxy subpopulations.