The Blanco cosmology survey: Data acquisition, processing, calibration, quality diagnostics, and data release

192Citations
Citations of this article
52Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

Abstract

The Blanco Cosmology Survey (BCS) is a 60 night imaging survey of ∼80deg2 of the southern sky located in two fields: (α, δ) = (5hr, -55°) and (23hr, -55°). The survey was carried out between 2005 and 2008 in griz bands with the Mosaic2 imager on the Blanco 4m telescope. The primary aim of the BCS survey is to provide the data required to optically confirm and measure photometric redshifts for Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect selected galaxy clusters from the South Pole Telescope and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. We process and calibrate the BCS data, carrying out point-spread function-corrected model-fitting photometry for all detected objects. The median 10σ galaxy (point-source) depths over the survey in griz are approximately 23.3 (23.9), 23.4 (24.0), 23.0 (23.6), and 21.3 (22.1), respectively. The astrometric accuracy relative to the USNO-B survey is ∼45 mas. We calibrate our absolute photometry using the stellar locus in grizJ bands, and thus our absolute photometric scale derives from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which has ∼2% accuracy. The scatter of stars about the stellar locus indicates a systematic floor in the relative stellar photometric scatter in griz that is ∼1.9%, ∼2.2%, ∼2.7%, and ∼2.7%, respectively. A simple cut in the AstrOmatic star-galaxy classifier spread-model produces a star sample with good spatial uniformity. We use the resulting photometric catalogs to calibrate photometric redshifts for the survey and demonstrate scatter δz/(1 + z) = 0.054 with an outlier fraction η < 5% to z ∼ 1. We highlight some selected science results to date and provide a full description of the released data products. © 2012. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.

References Powered by Scopus

Measurements of Ω and Λ from 42 high-redshift Supernovae

14807Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

The two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS)

9755Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003

8556Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Cited by Powered by Scopus

Dark Energy Survey year 1 results: Cosmological constraints from galaxy clustering and weak lensing

929Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

THE DARK ENERGY CAMERA

824Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Galaxy clusters discovered via the sunyaev-zel'dovich effect in the 2500-square-degree spt-sz survey

548Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Desai, S., Armstrong, R., Mohr, J. J., Semler, D. R., Liu, J., Bertin, E., … Zenteno, A. (2012, September 20). The Blanco cosmology survey: Data acquisition, processing, calibration, quality diagnostics, and data release. Astrophysical Journal. Institute of Physics Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/757/1/83

Readers' Seniority

Tooltip

PhD / Post grad / Masters / Doc 31

67%

Researcher 13

28%

Professor / Associate Prof. 2

4%

Readers' Discipline

Tooltip

Physics and Astronomy 42

91%

Computer Science 2

4%

Earth and Planetary Sciences 1

2%

Engineering 1

2%

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free