Legacy extragalactic UV survey (LEGUS) with the Hubble space telescope. I. Survey description

Journal Article · Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 EST 2015 · Astronomical Journal (New York, N.Y. Online)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-6256/149/2/51· OSTI ID:22342132

Calzetti, D.; Andrews, J. E. ^[1]; Lee, J. C.; Sabbi, E.; Ubeda, L.; Bright, S. N.; Aloisi, A.; Brown, T. M.; Christian, C.; Cignoni, M. ^[2]; Adamo, A. ^[3]; Smith, L. J. ^[4]; Thilker, D. ^[5]; Chandar, R. ^[6]; Clayton, G. C. ^[7]; Silva, R. da ^[8]; Mink, S. E. de ^[9]; Dobbs, C. ^[10]; Elmegreen, B. G. ^[11]; others, and

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1. Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts–Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003 (United States)
2. Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD (United States)
3. Department of Astronomy, The Oskar Klein Centre, Stockholm University, Stockholm (Sweden)
4. European Space Agency/Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD (United States)
5. Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD (United States)
6. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH (United States)
7. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA (United States)
8. Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California—Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA (United States)
9. Astronomical Institute Anton Pannekoek, Amsterdam University, Amsterdam (Netherlands)
10. School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Exeter, Exeter (United Kingdom)
11. IBM Research Division, T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY (United States)

The Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey (LEGUS) is a Cycle 21 Treasury program on the Hubble Space Telescope aimed at the investigation of star formation and its relation with galactic environment in nearby galaxies, from the scales of individual stars to those of ∼kiloparsec-size clustered structures. Five-band imaging from the near-ultraviolet to the I band with the Wide-Field Camera 3 (WFC3), plus parallel optical imaging with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), is being collected for selected pointings of 50 galaxies within the local 12 Mpc. The filters used for the observations with the WFC3 are F275W(λ2704 Å), F336W(λ3355 Å), F438W(λ4325 Å), F555W(λ5308 Å), and F814W(λ8024 Å); the parallel observations with the ACS use the filters F435W(λ4328 Å), F606W(λ5921 Å), and F814W(λ8057 Å). The multiband images are yielding accurate recent (≲50 Myr) star formation histories from resolved massive stars and the extinction-corrected ages and masses of star clusters and associations. The extensive inventories of massive stars and clustered systems will be used to investigate the spatial and temporal evolution of star formation within galaxies. This will, in turn, inform theories of galaxy evolution and improve the understanding of the physical underpinning of the gas–star formation relation and the nature of star formation at high redshift. This paper describes the survey, its goals and observational strategy, and the initial scientific results. Because LEGUS will provide a reference survey and a foundation for future observations with the James Webb Space Telescope and with ALMA, a large number of data products are planned for delivery to the community.

• OSTI ID: 22342132
• Journal Information: Astronomical Journal (New York, N.Y. Online), Vol. 149, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1538-3881
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
DELIVERY
EVOLUTION
FILTERS
GALAXIES
IMAGES
MASS
RED SHIFT
SPACE
STAR CLUSTERS
STARS
TELESCOPES
ULTRAVIOLET RADIATION