Welcome to the Coma Legacy Survey pages at Astro-WISE.

The core of the Coma Legacy survey is an HST ACS Treasury imaging survey of the core and an infall region of the richest local cluster of galaxies, Coma. The observations contain thousands of galaxies down to magnitude g=27.5 and I=26.6. In addition various ground-based and space-based observing campaigns are being undertaken at other wavelengths. This will result in a multi-wavelength public legacy dataset of calibrated data and derived catalogs.

Our main scientific objectives are:

  • Measurement of the luminosity function of galaxies to a V band absolute magnitude of -9.
  • A study of the structure of the dwarf galaxies, including scaling laws, nuclear structure and morphology, to compare with hierarchical and evolutionary models of their formation
  • A study of the stellar populations from colours and colour gradients, and how the internal chemical evolution of galaxies is affected by interaction with the cluster gaseous and galaxy environment
  • To determine the effect of the cluster environment upon morphological features, disks, bulges and bars, by comparing these structure in the Coma sample with field galaxy samples
  • Identification of dwarf galaxy samples for further study with the new generation of multi-object and integral-field spectrographs on 8-10 metre class telescopes such as Keck, Subaru, Gemini, and GTC.
  • Study of the photometric properties of the Globular Cluster systems associated with the bright and faint galaxies of the cluster.
This is the first such survey of a nearby rich cluster. It will provide a key database for studies of galaxy formation and evolution, and a very needed reference for comparison with similar galaxy surveys both in lower density environments in the nearby universe, and in high density environments at high redshifts.

In addition to HST/ACS images, additional data from ground- based facilities will be added to the survey, and will be available in future data releases, including:
An overview of the HST Treasury program of the Coma Legacy Survey is given in paper I: Surveys Objectives and Desgin, ApJS in press and on the Coma Legacy Survey website. See the homepage of the Coma Cluster HST Treasury program for further details.

The role of the Astro-WISE Information System in the Coma Legacy Survey is to disseminate the legacy data (ACS and other auxiliary data and catalogs) and perform surface photometry analysis of the Coma galaxies. The Astro-WISE homepage is the entry for more information about Astro-WISE.

News
NEW! The HST/ACS Coma Cluster Survey. II. Data Description and Source Catalogs: see paper . 19 May 2010
NEW! Data release 2 of images and catalogs of the HST/ACS Treasury Survey. Please see ACS data page for data retrieval and release note. 19 May 2010