CANDELS: THE COSMIC ASSEMBLY NEAR-INFRARED DEEP EXTRAGALACTIC LEGACY SURVEY
- Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD (United States)
- UCO/Lick Observatory, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers, State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ (United States)
- Department of Physics, Durham University, Durham (United Kingdom)
- The School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham (United Kingdom)
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA (United States)
- Institute of Astro- and Particle Physics, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck (Austria)
- Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
- CEA-Saclay/DSM/DAPNIA/Service d'Astrophysique, Gif-sur-Yvette (France)
- Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh (United Kingdom)
- Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA (United States)
- INAF, Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, Rome (Italy)
- Harvard College Observatory, Cambridge, MA (United States)
- U.S. Planck Data Center, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA (United States)
The Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS) is designed to document the first third of galactic evolution, over the approximate redshift (z) range 8-1.5. It will image >250,000 distant galaxies using three separate cameras on the Hubble Space Telescope, from the mid-ultraviolet to the near-infrared, and will find and measure Type Ia supernovae at z > 1.5 to test their accuracy as standardizable candles for cosmology. Five premier multi-wavelength sky regions are selected, each with extensive ancillary data. The use of five widely separated fields mitigates cosmic variance and yields statistically robust and complete samples of galaxies down to a stellar mass of 10{sup 9} M{sub Sun} to z Almost-Equal-To 2, reaching the knee of the ultraviolet luminosity function of galaxies to z Almost-Equal-To 8. The survey covers approximately 800 arcmin{sup 2} and is divided into two parts. The CANDELS/Deep survey (5{sigma} point-source limit H = 27.7 mag) covers {approx}125 arcmin{sup 2} within Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS)-N and GOODS-S. The CANDELS/Wide survey includes GOODS and three additional fields (Extended Groth Strip, COSMOS, and Ultra-deep Survey) and covers the full area to a 5{sigma} point-source limit of H {approx}> 27.0 mag. Together with the Hubble Ultra Deep Fields, the strategy creates a three-tiered 'wedding-cake' approach that has proven efficient for extragalactic surveys. Data from the survey are nonproprietary and are useful for a wide variety of science investigations. In this paper, we describe the basic motivations for the survey, the CANDELS team science goals and the resulting observational requirements, the field selection and geometry, and the observing design. The Hubble data processing and products are described in a companion paper.
- OSTI ID:
- 22047264
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Supplement Series, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal, Supplement Series Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 197; ISSN 0067-0049; ISSN APJSA2
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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