ESO Imaging Survey. The Stellar Catalogue in the Chandra Deep Field South

TL;DR

This paper presents detailed stellar catalogues in multiple passbands for the Chandra Deep Field South, including methods for source classification and identification of QSOs and unresolved galaxies, with data quality assessments and public data release.

Contribution

The study provides comprehensive multi-band stellar catalogues and a novel scheme for source classification, including identification of QSOs and unresolved galaxies, with data validation against Galactic models.

Findings

Catalogues include ~1200 objects in 5 passbands and ~400 objects in 7 passbands.

A new method combines SExtractor parameters for point source selection.

Data quality validated through comparison with Galactic model simulations.

Abstract

(abridged) Stellar catalogues in five passbands (UBVRI) over an area of approximately 0.3 deg^2, comprising about 1200 objects, and in seven passbands (UBVRIJK) over approximately 0.1 deg^2, comprising about 400 objects, in the direction of the Chandra Deep Field South are presented. The 90% completeness level of the number counts is reached at approximately U = 23.8, B = 24.0, V = 23.5, R = 23.0, I = 21.0, J = 20.5, K = 19.0. A scheme is presented to select point sources from these catalogues, by combining the SExtractor parameter CLASS_STAR from all available passbands. Probable QSOs and unresolved galaxies are identified by using the previously developed \chi^2-technique (Hatziminaoglou et al 2002), that fits the overall spectral energy distributions to template spectra and determines the best fitting template. The observed number counts, colour-magnitude diagrams, colour-colour diagrams and colour distributions are presented and, to judge the quality of the data, compared to simulations based on the predictions of a Galactic Model convolved with the estimated completeness functions and the error model used to describe the photometric errors of the data. The resulting stellar catalogues and the objects identified as likely QSOs and unresolved galaxies with coordinates, observed magnitudes with errors and assigned spectral types by the $\chi^2$-technique are presented and are publicly available.