Final Data Release of zCOSMOS-bright Redshift Survey

Published: 20 Jan 2016
Part of a CFHT image of the COSMOS field

zCOSMOS (PI Simon Lilly, ESO Large Programme 175.A-0839) is a large redshift survey undertaken in the COSMOS field using the VIMOS spectrograph. About 600 hours were awarded to this Large Programme, which was executed between 2005 and 2010. This final release of zCOSMOS-bright includes 20689 1-d spectra.

The survey was split into two parts: the first, zCOSMOS-bright, which is the subject of this release, aimed to produce a redshift survey of about 20000 I-band selected galaxies at redshift z<1.2. It covers approximately 1.7 square degrees of the COSMOS field and has a transverse dimension at z~1 of 75 Mpc. The second part, zCOSMOS-deep, observed a smaller number of galaxies at higher redshift in the range 1.5<z<3.0.

This new release completes the zCOSMOS-bright survey and includes 20689 wavelength calibrated 1-d spectra and associated 5×5 arcsecond image cut-outs for each target, extracted from HST/ACS images in the F814W filter (FITS and JPEG format). It is available via the dedicated Phase 3 query interface. The release also includes a spectroscopic catalogue that contains the determined redshifts and confidence classes and is supported by a comprehensive description.

Image Credit: CFHT/IAP/Terapix/CNRS/ESO

In the version of this announcement emailed with the January 2016 Science Newsletter, part of an image of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field was mistakenly included. We apologise for the confusion this has caused.