The First Public Release of South Pole Telescope Data: Maps of a 95 deg2 Field from 2008 Observations

Article

Schaffer, K. K., Crawford, T. M., Aird, K. A., Benson, B. A., Bleem, L. E., Carlstrom, J. E., Chang, C. L., Cho, H. M., Crites, A. T., de Haan, T., Dobbs, M. A., George, E. M., Halverson, N. W., Holder, G. P., Holzapfel, W. L., Hoover, S., Hrubes, J. D., Joy, M., Keisler, R., Knox, L., Lee, A. T., Leitch, E. M., Lueker, M., Luong-Van, D., McMahon, J. J. et al. 2011. "The First Public Release of South Pole Telescope Data: Maps of a 95 deg2 Field from 2008 Observations." The Astrophysical Journal, 743, (1). https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/743/1/90.

The South Pole Telescope (SPT) has nearly completed a 2500 deg² survey of the southern sky in three frequency bands. Here, we present the first public release of SPT maps and associated data products. We present arcminute-resolution maps at 150 GHz and 220 GHz of an approximately 95 deg² field centered at R.A. 82fdg7, decl. –55°. The field was observed to a depth of approximately 17 µK arcmin at 150 GHz and 41 µK arcmin at 220 GHz during the 2008 austral winter season. Two variations on map filtering and map projection are presented, one tailored for producing catalogs of galaxy clusters detected through their Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect signature and one tailored for producing catalogs of emissive sources.