Abstract
The Stripe 82 Massive Galaxy Catalog (S82-MGC) is the largest-volume stellar mass-limited sample of galaxies beyond z ≈ 0.1 constructed to date. Spanning 139.4 deg2, the S82-MGC includes a mass-limited sample of 41,770 galaxies with log M*/M⊙ ≳ 11.2 to z ≈ 0.7, sampling a volume of 0.3 Gpc3, roughly equivalent to the volume of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-I/II (SDSS-I/II) z < 0.15 main sample. The catalog is built on three pillars of survey data: the SDSS Stripe 82 Coadd photometry which reaches r-band magnitudes of ∼23.5 AB, Y JHK photometry at depths of 20th magnitude (AB) from the UK Infrared Deep Sky Survey Large Area Survey, and over 70,000 spectroscopic galaxy redshifts from the SDSS-I/II and the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. We describe the catalog construction and verification, the production of 9-band matched aperture photometry, tests of existing and newly estimated photometric redshifts required to supplement spectroscopic redshifts for 55% of the log M*/M⊙ ≳ 11.2 sample, and geometric masking. We provide near-IR based stellar mass estimates and compare these to previous estimates. All catalog products are made publicly available. The S82-MGC not only addresses previous statistical limitations in high-mass galaxy evolution studies, but also begins tackling inherent data challenges in the coming era of wide-field imaging surveys.
Recommended Citation
K. Bundy et al., "The Stripe 82 Massive Galaxy Project. I. Catalog Construction," Astrophysical Journal, Supplement Series, vol. 221, no. 1, Institute of Physics - IOP Publishing, Nov 2015.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1088/0067-0049/221/1/15
Department(s)
Physics
Keywords and Phrases
Catalogs; Galaxies: Abundances; Galaxies: General
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
0067-0049; 1538-4365)
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Final Version
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2015 The American Astronomical Society, All rights reserved.
Publication Date
01 Nov 2015
