The UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey or UKIDSS is an astronomical survey conducted using the WFCAM wide field camera on the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope on

Mauna Kea Mauna Kea (, ; abbreviation for ''Mauna a Wākea''); is a dormant Shield volcano, shield volcano on the Hawaii (island), island of Hawaii. Its peak is above sea level, making it the List of U.S. states by elevation, highest point in Hawaii a ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

. Survey observations were commenced in 2005. UKIDSS consists of five surveys covering a range of areas and depths, using various combinations of five near-infrared filters.

Description

UKIDSS as a large-scale near infrared survey follows

2MASS The Two Micron All-Sky Survey, or 2MASS, was an astronomical survey of the whole sky in infrared light. It took place between 1997 and 2001, in two different locations: at the U.S. Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory on Mount Hopkins, Arizona, and ...

and anticipates the

VISTA Vista may refer to: Software *Windows Vista, the line of Microsoft Windows client operating systems released in 2006 and 2007 * VistA, (Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture) a medical records system of the United States ...

telescope in the Southern hemisphere. It aims to cover 7500 square degrees of the Northern sky. Four particular areas of investigation for UKIDSS are: "the coolest and nearest brown dwarfs, high-redshift dusty starburst galaxies, elliptical galaxies and galaxy clusters at redshifts 1 < ''z'' < 2, and the highest-redshift quasars, at ''z'' = 7".UKIDSS Home Page
Retrieved April 30, 2007. The UKIDSS data become available online to the

ESO The European Southern Observatory is an astronomical research organisation. ESO may also refer to: *Employee stock option (also: executive stock option) *'' Ether Saga Odyssey'', a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game *''The Elde ...

community immediately upon entering th
WFCAM Science Archive (WSA)
and are then released to the world 18 months later.

Surveys

Of the five surveys in UKIDSS, two are directed towards Galactic targets and three are optimized for extra-Galactic observations. The surveys are described here in decreasing order of area. The letters refer to spectral regions; e.g. JHK is a combination of near-infrared filters, more or less synonymous with "the near-infrared".

Large Area Survey (LAS)

The LAS (extra-Galactic) covers an area of 4000 square degrees in YJHK to a depth of K = 18.4. This area has previously been covered at optical wavelengths in the

Sloan Digital Sky Survey The Sloan Digital Sky Survey or SDSS is a major multi-spectral imaging and spectroscopic redshift survey using a dedicated 2.5-m wide-angle optical telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, United States. The project began in 2000 a ...

. While the high Galactic latitudes covered by the LAS make it suitable for observations of sources outside the Milky Way, the survey also targets Galactic sources, incorporating a second pass in J to measure proper motions of nearby stars.

Galactic Plane Survey (GPS)

The GPS (Galactic) covers an area of 1800 square degrees in JHK to a depth of K=19.0, with 300 square degrees also covered through a narrow-band H₂ filter. The motivation for the GPS is to obtain a clearer view of the Galactic Plane than is possible at optical wavelengths, due to absorption by material in the disk of the galaxy.

Galactic Clusters Survey (GCS)

The GCS (Galactic) covers an area of 1400 square degrees in JHK to a depth of K=18.7. The area is distributed over ten open star clusters with the aim of measuring the mass function in a variety of Galactic environments.

Deep Extragalactic Survey (DXS)

The DXS (extra-Galactic) covers an area of 35 square degrees in JK to a depth of K=21.0 with 5 square degrees also imaged in H. The survey fields are at high Galactic latitudes with low extinction, and are chosen to overlap with deep observations made at other wavelengths.

Ultra Deep Survey (UDS)

The UDS (extra-Galactic) covers an area of 0.77 square degrees within the XMM-LSS field (which is contained within the DXS) in JHK to a depth of K=23.0. This is the deepest near-infrared survey yet conducted over such an area of sky, with the aim of studying the formation and evolution of galaxies in the early Universe.

Notes

External links

UKIDSS Home Page

WFCAM Science Archive (WSA)

UKIDSS Ultra-Deep Survey
{{Portal bar, Astronomy, Stars, Outer space *UKIDSS-LAS *UKIDSS-GPS