Overview of the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys

Lijuan Huang, Arjun Dey, David J. Schlegel, Dustin Lang, Robert Blum, Kaylan Burleigh, Xiaohui Fan, Joseph R. Findlay, Doug Finkbeiner, David Herrera, Stéphanie Juneau, Martin Landriau, Michael Levi, Ian McGreer, Aaron Meisner, Adam D. Myers, John Moustakas, Peter Nugent, Anna Patej, Edward F. SchlaflyAlistair R. Walker, Francisco Valdes, Benjamin A. Weaver, Christophe Yèche, Hu Zou, Xu Zhou, Behzad Abareshi, T. M.C. Abbott, Bela Abolfathi, C. Aguilera, Shadab Alam, Lori Allen, A. Alvarez, James Annis, Behzad Ansarinejad, Marie Aubert, Jacqueline Beechert, Eric F. Bell, Segev Y. Benzvi, Florian Beutler, Richard M. Bielby, Adam S. Bolton, César Briceño, Elizabeth J. Buckley-Geer, Karen Butler, Annalisa Calamida, Raymond G. Carlberg, Paul Carter, Ricard Casas, Francisco J. Castander, Yumi Choi, Johan Comparat, Elena Cukanovaite, Timothée Delubac, Kaitlin Devries, Sharmila Dey, Govinda Dhungana, Mark Dickinson, Zhejie Ding, John B. Donaldson, Yutong Duan, Christopher J. Duckworth, Sarah Eftekharzadeh, Daniel J. Eisenstein, Thomas Etourneau, Parker A. Fagrelius, Jay Farihi, Mike Fitzpatrick, Andreu Font-Ribera, Leah Fulmer, Boris T. Gänsicke, Enrique Gaztanaga, Koshy George, David W. Gerdes, Satya Gontcho A Gontcho, Claudio Gorgoni, Gregory Green, Julien Guy, Diane Harmer, M. Hernandez, Klaus Honscheid, Lijuan Wendy Huang, David J. James, Buell T. Jannuzi, Linhua Jiang, Richard Joyce, Armin Karcher, Sonia Karkar, Robert Kehoe, Jean Paul Kneib, Andrea Kueter-Young, Ting Wen Lan, Tod R. Lauer, Laurent Le Guillou, Auguste Le Van Suu, Jae Hyeon Lee, Michael Lesser, Laurence Perreault Levasseur, Ting S. Li, Justin L. Mann, Robert Marshall, C. E. Martínez-Vázquez, Paul Martini, Hélion Du Mas Des Bourboux, Sean McManus, Tobias Gabriel Meier, Brice Ménard, Nigel Metcalfe, Andrea Muñoz-Gutiérrez, Joan Najita, Kevin Napier, Gautham Narayan, Jeffrey A. Newman, Jundan Nie, Brian Nord, Dara J. Norman, Knut A.G. Olsen, Anthony Paat, Nathalie Palanque-Delabrouille, Xiyan Peng, Claire L. Poppett, Megan R. Poremba, Abhishek Prakash, David Rabinowitz, Anand Raichoor, Mehdi Rezaie, A. N. Robertson, Natalie A. Roe, Ashley J. Ross, Nicholas P. Ross, Gregory Rudnick, Sasha Safonova, Abhijit Saha, F. Javier Sánchez, Elodie Savary, Heidi Schweiker, Adam Scott, Hee Jong Seo, Huanyuan Shan, David R. Silva, Zachary Slepian, Christian Soto, David Sprayberry, Ryan Staten, Coley M. Stillman, Robert J. Stupak, David L. Summers, Suk Sien Tie, H. Tirado, Mariana Vargas-Magaña, A. Katherina Vivas, Risa H. Wechsler, Doug Williams, Jinyi Yang, Qian Yang, Tolga Yapici, Dennis Zaritsky, A. Zenteno, Kai Zhang, Tianmeng Zhang, Rongpu Zhou, Zhimin Zhou

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

Abstract

The DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys (http://legacysurvey.org/) are a combination of three public projects (the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey, the Beijing-Arizona Sky Survey, and the Mayall z-band Legacy Survey) that will jointly image ≈14,000 deg2 of the extragalactic sky visible from the northern hemisphere in three optical bands (g, r, and z) using telescopes at the Kitt Peak National Observatory and the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. The combined survey footprint is split into two contiguous areas by the Galactic plane. The optical imaging is conducted using a unique strategy of dynamically adjusting the exposure times and pointing selection during observing that results in a survey of nearly uniform depth. In addition to calibrated images, the project is delivering a catalog, constructed by using a probabilistic inference-based approach to estimate source shapes and brightnesses. The catalog includes photometry from the grz optical bands and from four mid-infrared bands (at 3.4, 4.6, 12, and 22 μm) observed by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer satellite during its full operational lifetime. The project plans two public data releases each year. All the software used to generate the catalogs is also released with the data. This paper provides an overview of the Legacy Surveys project.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number168
JournalAstronomical Journal
Volume157
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2019
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • catalogs
  • surveys

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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