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Description
We present the second public data release of the VISTA EXtension to Auxiliary Surveys (VEXAS DR2), where we classify objects into stars, galaxies and quasars based on an ensemble of machine learning algorithms. The aim of VEXAS is to build the widest multi-wavelength catalogue, providing reference magnitudes, colours and morphological information for a large number of scientific uses. We apply an ensemble of thirty-two different machine learning models, based on three different algorithms and on different magnitude sets, training samples and classification problems (two or three classes) on the three VEXAS Data Release 1 (DR1) optical+infrared (IR) tables. The tables were created in DR1 cross-matching VISTA near-infrared data with Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer far-infrared data and with optical magnitudes from the Dark Energy Survey (VEXAS-DESW), the Sky Mapper Survey (VEXAS-SMW), and the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System Survey (VEXAS-PSW). We assemble a large table of spectroscopically confirmed objects (VEXAS-SPEC-GOOD, 415 628 unique objects), based on the combination of six different spectroscopic surveys that we use for training. We develop feature imputation to classify also objects for which magnitudes in one or more bands are missing. We classify in total 90106 objects in the Southern Hemisphere. Among these, ~62.9x10^6^ (~52.6x10^6^) are classified as 'high confidence' ('secure') stars, ~920000 (~750000) as 'high confidence' ('secure') quasars and ~34.8 (~34.1) millions as 'high confidence' ('secure') galaxies, with pclass>=0.7 (pclass>=0.9). The DR2 tables update the DR1 with the addition of imputed magnitudes and membership probabilities to each of the three classes. The density of high-confidence extragalactic objects varies strongly with the survey depth: at pclass>0.7; there are 111/deg^2^ quasars in the VEXAS-DESW footprint and 103/deg^2^ in the VEXAS-PSW footprint, while only 10.7/deg^2^ in the VEXASSM footprint. Improved depth in the midIR and coverage in the optical and nearIR are needed for the SM footprint that is not already covered by DESW and PSW.
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