Bibcode
Varela, J.; D'Onofrio, M.; Marmo, C.; Fasano, G.; Bettoni, D.; Cava, A.; Couch, W. J.; Dressler, A.; Kjærgaard, P.; Moles, M.; Pignatelli, E.; Poggianti, B. M.; Valentinuzzi, T.
Bibliographical reference
Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 497, Issue 3, 2009, pp.667-676
Advertised on:
4
2009
Journal
Citations
87
Refereed citations
85
Description
Context: This is the second paper of a series devoted to the WIde Field
Nearby Galaxy-cluster Survey (WINGS). WINGS is a long term project which
is gathering wide-field, multi-band imaging and spectroscopy of galaxies
in a complete sample of 77 X-ray selected, nearby clusters (0.04 < z
< 0.07) located far from the galactic plane (|b|≥ 20°). The
main goal of this project is to establish a local reference for
evolutionary studies of galaxies and galaxy clusters. Aims: This
paper presents the optical (B,V) photometric catalogs of the WINGS
sample and describes the procedures followed to construct them. We have
paid special care to correctly treat the large extended galaxies (which
includes the brightest cluster galaxies) and the reduction of the
influence of the bright halos of very bright stars. Methods: We
have constructed photometric catalogs based on wide-field images in B
and V bands using SExtractor. Photometry has been performed on images in
which large galaxies and halos of bright stars were removed after
modeling them with elliptical isophotes. Results: We publish deep
optical photometric catalogs (90% complete at V ~ 21.7, which translates
to ˜ M^*_V+6 at mean redshift), giving positions, geometrical
parameters, and several total and aperture magnitudes for all the
objects detected. For each field we have produced three catalogs
containing galaxies, stars and objects of “unknown”
classification (~6%). From simulations we found that the uncertainty of
our photometry is quite dependent of the light profile of the objects
with stars having the most robust photometry and de Vaucouleurs profiles
showing higher uncertainties and also an additional bias of ~-0.2^m. The
star/galaxy classification of the bright objects (V < 20) was checked
visually making negligible the fraction of misclassified objects. For
fainter objects, we found that simulations do not provide reliable
estimates of the possible misclassification and therefore we have
compared our data with that from deep counts of galaxies and star counts
from models of our Galaxy. Both sets turned out to be consistent with
our data within ~5% (in the ratio galaxies/total) up to V ~ 24. Finally,
we remark that the application of our special procedure to remove large
halos improves the photometry of the large galaxies in our sample with
respect to the use of blind automatic procedures and increases (~16%)
the detection rate of objects projected onto them.
Based on observations taken at the Issac Newton Telescope (2.5 m-INT)
sited at Roque de los Muchachos (La Palma, Spain), and the MPG/ESO-2.2 m
Telescope sited at La Silla (Chile). Appendices are only available in
electronic form at http://www.aanda.org Catalog is only available in
electronic form at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr
(130.79.128.5) or via
http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/497/667
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Formation and Evolution of Galaxies: Observations in Infrared and other Wavelengths
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Ismael
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