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Description
We present an absorption-selected survey of CaII and NaI features located in the halo of the Milky Way using QSO absorption spectroscopy. We made use of the ESO data archive and retrieved all publically available absorption-line data for low- and high-redshift QSOs observed with the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES) on the VLT. This enormous data archive (Spectral Quasar Absorption Database, SQUAD; PI: M.T. Murphy) provides high-quality spectral data for ~400 quasars and active galactic nuclei (AGN). Most of these spectra were taken in the UVES standard configuration using the 1" slit, providing a spectral resolution of R~45000 (corresponding to a velocity resolution of ~6.6km/sFWHM). The spectral coverage as well as the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) varies substantially among the spectra, reflecting the various scientific goals of the original proposals. For several of the sight lines we performed deep (brightness temperature limit, Tb_lim_~30mK, angular resolution: 9' FWHM, spectral resolution: 0.5km/s FWHM) follow-up radio observations using the Effelsberg 100-m telescope to search for HI emission. Furthermore for a large fraction of the sight lines we obtained HI data from the new Galactic All-Sky survey (GASS, Tb_lim_~60mK, angular resolution: 15.6' FWHM, spectral resolution: 0.8km/s FWHM) and the Effelsberg-Bonn HI survey (EBHIS, Tb_lim_~90mK, angular resolution: 10.5' FWHM, spectral resolution: 1.2km/s FWHM). All HI data were corrected for stray radiation using software by P. Kalberla.
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