Final imaging data release of the VST Public Survey VPHAS+

Published: 18 Oct 2019

The primary goal of the VST Photometric Hα Survey of the Southern Galactic Plane and Bulge (VPHAS+, PI J. E. Drew) is to collect single-epoch ugri broad-band and Hα narrow-band photometry across the southern Galactic Plane within the latitude range -5 < b < +5 with typical 5-sigma sensitivities for point sources down to 21 mag in Vega or fainter.

This fourth data release includes reduced images and their related source lists taken in the time interval from November 2015 to August 2018, when the survey terminated. By releasing this additional three years of observations, DR4 adds almost 4TB of data to the VPHAS+ collection, effectively doubling the sky area coverage. In total, approximately 2080 deg2 are now covered in all survey filters, which is 92% of the originally planned survey footprint.

Data can be browsed and downloaded from the ESO Science Portal or programmatically. A more detailed description of the release can be found in the accompanying documentation. By accessing the VPHAS+ products, the ESO community benefits from joint efforts by ESO, the PIs of the VST public survey projects and their collaborators, including CASU.