2018/04/08 by A. J. Cenarro, M. Moles, D. Cristóbal-Hornillos +119 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph.CO #astro-ph.GA
paper · pdf · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201833036
published as A&A 622, A176 (2019) · Submitted to A&A
arxiv created 2018/04/08 · arxiv updated 2019/08/13
J-PLUS is an ongoing 12-band photometric optical survey, observing thousands of square degrees of the Northern hemisphere from the dedicated JAST/T80 telescope at the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre. T80Cam is a 2 sq.deg field-of-view camera mounted on this 83cm-diameter telescope, and is equipped with a unique system of filters spanning the entire optical range. This filter system is a combination of broad, medium and narrow-band filters, optimally designed to extract the rest-frame spectral features (the 3700-4000Å Balmer break region, Hδ, Ca H+K, the G-band, the Mgb and Ca triplets) that are key to both characterize stellar types and to deliver a low-resolution photo-spectrum for each pixel of the sky observed. With a typical depth of AB ∼ 21.25 mag per band, this filter set thus allows for an indiscriminate and accurate characterization of the stellar population in our Galaxy, it provides an unprecedented 2D photo-spectral information for all resolved galaxies in the local universe, as well as accurate photo-z estimates (Δ z∼ 0.01-0.03) for moderately bright (up to r∼ 20 mag) extragalactic sources. While some narrow band filters are designed for the study of particular emission features ([OII]/λ3727, Hα/λ6563) up to z < 0.015, they also provide well-defined windows for the analysis of other emission lines at higher redshifts. As a result, J-PLUS has the potential to contribute to a wide range of fields in Astrophysics, both in the nearby universe (Milky Way, 2D IFU-like studies, stellar populations of nearby and moderate redshift galaxies, clusters of galaxies) and at high redshifts (ELGs at z≈ 0.77, 2.2 and 4.4, QSOs, etc). With this paper, we release ∼ 36 sq.deg of J-PLUS data, containing about 1.5× 105 stars and 105 galaxies at r<21 mag.