We present results for the first three years of OzDES, a six-year program to obtain redshifts for objects in the Dark Energy Survey (DES) supernova fields using the 2dF fibre positioner and AAOmega spectrograph on the Anglo-Australian Telescope. OzDES is a multi-object spectroscopic survey targeting multiple types of targets at multiple epochs over a multi-year baseline, and is one of the first multi-object spectroscopic surveys to dynamically include transients into the target list soon after their discovery. At the end of three years, OzDES has spectroscopically confirmed almost 100 supernovae, and has measured redshifts for 17,000 objects, including the redshifts of 2,566 supernova hosts. We examine how our ability to measure redshifts for targets of various types depends on signal-to-noise, magnitude, and exposure time, finding that our redshift success rate increases significantly at a signal-to-noise of 2 to 3 per 1-Angstrom bin. We also find that the change in signal-to-noise with exposure time closely matches the Poisson limit for stacked exposures as long as 10 hours. We use these results to predict the redshift yield of the full OzDES survey, as well as the potential yields of future surveys on other facilities such as 4MOST, PFS, and MSE. This work marks the first OzDES data release, comprising 14,693 redshifts. OzDES is on target to obtain over 30,000 redshifts over the six-year duration of the survey, including a yield of approximately 5,700 supernova host-galaxy redshifts.
We present the construction and describe the properties of the Padova-Millennium Galaxy and Group Catalogue (PM2GC), a galaxy catalogue representative of the general field population in the local Universe. We characterize galaxy environments by identifying galaxy groups at 0.04<=z<=0.1 with a Friends-of-Friends (FoF) algorithm using a complete sample of 3210 galaxies brighter than M_B_=-18.7 taken from the Millennium Galaxy Catalogue (MGC, Liske et al., 2003, Cat. VII/240), a 38deg^2^ image photometric and spectroscopic equatorial survey. We identified 176 groups with at least three members, comprising in total 1057 galaxies and representing ~43 per cent of the general field population in that redshift range.
We construct a photometrically calibrated catalog of non-variable sources from the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) observations. The first version of this catalog presented here, the PTF photometric catalog 1.0, contains calibrated R_PTF_-filter magnitudes for ~2.1x10^7^ sources brighter than magnitude 19, over an area of ~11233{deg}^2^. The magnitudes are provided in the PTF photometric system, and the color of a source is required in order to convert these magnitudes into other magnitude systems. We estimate that the magnitudes in this catalog have typical accuracy of about 0.02mag with respect to magnitudes from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The median repeatability of our catalog's magnitudes for stars between 15 and 16mag, is about 0.01mag, and it is better than 0.03mag for 95% of the sources in this magnitude range. The main goal of this catalog is to provide reference magnitudes for photometric calibration of visible light observations. Subsequent versions of this catalog, which will be published incrementally online, will be extended to a larger sky area and will also include g_PTF_-filter magnitudes, as well as variability and proper motion information.
The U.S. Naval Observatory is in the process of making new reductions of the Astrographic Catalogue (AC) using a modern reference system, the ACRS, which represents the system of the FK5. The data from the Paris Zone, whose plates are centered between declinations +18 and +24 degrees (eq. 1900), have been analyzed for scale, rotation, tilt, coma, magnitude equation, radial distortion and distortions introduced by the use of reseaux in the Carte du Ciel program. The result is a positional catalog of over 253,000 stars on eq. J2000.0, epoch of observation. Additionally, all stars have been matched with the Tycho Input Catalog (revised); those numbers have been added for additional identification purposes.
As part of our programme to map the large-scale distribution of galaxies behind the southern Milky Way, we observed 314 optically-selected, partially-obscured galaxies in the Zone of Avoidance (ZOA) in the Crux and Great Attractor (GA) regions. An additional 29 galaxies were observed in the Vela ZOA survey region (because of the small numbers they are not discussed any further). The observations were conducted with the Parkes 64m (210 ft) radio telescope, in a single-pixel pointed mode, reaching an rms noise level of typically 2-6mJy over the velocity search range of 400<v<10500km/s. A total of 162 galaxies were detected (plus 14 galaxies in the Vela region). The detection rate is slightly higher than for the Hydra/Antlia region (52% versus 45%) observed in the same way.
The 2MFGC catalog we have used contains 18020 galaxies selected from among the extended objects in the 2MASS infrared sky survey as having apparent ratios of the axes b/a<0.3. Most of them are spiral galaxies of later morphological types whose disks are seen almost edge-on. The individual distances to the 2724 2MFGC galaxies with known rotation velocities and radial velocities are determined using a multiparameter infrared Tully-Fisher relation. A list of the distances and peculiar velocities of these galaxies is presented. The collective motion of the 2MFGC galaxies relative to the cosmic microwave background is characterized by a velocity V=199+/-37km/s in the direction l=304+/-11, b=-8+/-8 . Our list is currently the most representative and uniform sample for analyzing non-Hubble motions of galaxies on a scale of ~100Mpc.
The Photoelectric Astrolabe Mark I (PHA I) has been revised with a new combined prism which could work as an almucantar with zenith distance of 45 degree, to measure continuous declinations at the latitude of Irkutsk, Russia ({phi}=52 degree). The PHA I has been working at the astronomical base of VS NIIFTRI in Irkutsk since Nov. 1995, based on an international cooperation agreement of near 4 years for star catalogue and EOP measurements. The first observing program was ended in June 1997, giving corrections in both right ascension and declination to 200 stars with no blind zone in declination determination, which most astrolabe catalogues in the world usually would have.
The Phoenix Deep Survey is a multiwavelength galaxy survey based on deep 1.4GHz radio imaging. The primary goal of this survey is to investigate the properties of star formation in galaxies and to trace the evolution in those properties to a redshift z=1, covering a significant fraction of the age of the universe. By compiling a sample of star-forming galaxies based on selection at radio wavelengths we eliminate possible biases due to dust obscuration, a significant issue when selecting objects at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths. In this paper, we present the catalogs and results of deep optical (UBVRI) and near-infrared (Ks) imaging of the deepest region of the existing decimetric radio imaging. The observations and data processing are summarized and the construction of the optical source catalogs described, together with the details of the identification of candidate optical counterparts to the radio catalogs. Based on our UBVRIKs imaging, photometric redshift estimates for the optical counterparts to the radio detections are explored.
Radii, b26 magnitudes, (b-r) colors, position angles, and ellipticities have been measured on the plates of Palomar 48-inch Schmidt telescope taken in May 1976, for 6925 galaxies in a 5-sq deg field enclosing the close pair of rich clusters A2197 and A2199.
Galaxies are the most massive, luminous astronomical objects bound by self gravity and comprise the major fraction of luminous mass in the universe. Recent investigations of galaxies often require statistical analysis of a large body of observational data. High degree of homogeneity of the data is the key point to the success of such investigations. This catalog presents homogeneous photometric parameters of 791 northern bright galaxies on the basis of modern photographic surface photometry. Sample galaxies are taken from the Revised Shapley-Ames Catalog of Bright Galaxies (Sandage and Tammann 1981) and most of them are members of the Local Super-cluster. Observations were made with the 105cm Schmidt telescope at the Kiso Observatory, Institute of Astronomy, University of Tokyo, in the photographic V band (Kodak IIa-D emulsion combined with a Schott GG 495 filter) mostly during 1984-1988. Sample galaxies photographed on a total of 280 Schmidt plates were scanned with the PDS 2020 GMS microdensitometer at the Kiso Observatory during April-August 1988. Data reduction for standard surface photometry was carried out using a software library SPIRAL (Ichikawa et al. 1987; Okamura 1988) during July-September 1988. The intensive plate measurement and data reduction secure high homogeneity of the present data. This catalog is the first machine-readable version (Ver.1) of Part II (The Catalog) of the 'Photometric Atlas of Northern Bright Galaxies' (Kodaira et al. 1990), which also includes in Part III illustrative information such as images, isophotal maps, luminosity profiles, and ellipses fitted to the isophotes. Image data of sample galaxies can be obtained in FITS format magnetic tapes upon request, and it is planned to distribute them on CD-ROMs. We request that those errors in this catalog that are found by the user be transmitted to S. Ichikawa, National Astronomical Observatory, Mitaka, Tokyo 181 Japan (e-mail : richika@c1.mtk.nao.ac.jp) so that they can be corrected in future versions.
