zCOSMOS DR2 Advanced Data Products now available

The zCOSMOS redshift survey has been designed to efficiently utilize VIMOS by splitting the survey into two parts. The first, zCOSMOS-bright, aims to produce a redshift survey of approximately 20,000 I-band selected galaxies at redshifts z < 1.2. Covering the approximately 1.7 deg² of the COSMOS field (essentially the full ACS-covered area), the transverse dimension at z ~ 1 is 75 Mpc. The second part, zCOSMOS-deep, will observe about 10,000 galaxies selected through well-defined colour selection criteria which mostly lie at 1.5 < z < 3.0. Simply to keep the required amount of telescope time manageable, the field of zCOSMOS-deep is restricted to the central 1 deg² of the COSMOS field.

This second release (DR2) contains the results of the zCOSMOS-bright spectroscopic observations that were carried out in VLT Service Mode during the period April 2005 to June 2006. 83 masks were observed, yielding 10643 spectra. Future releases will be made as the sample builds up.

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