The XMM-Newton Follow-Up Survey

The XMM-Newton Follow-Up Survey (XFS) consists of two parts, a public and a private one. Both were conducted with the Wide Field Imager (WFI) at the ESO/MPG-2.2 m telescope on La Silla, Chile. The survey provides optical imaging on fields for which deep, public XMM-Newton exposures exist.

The public survey (ESO Programme Id. 170.A-0789, P.I. J. Krautter as chairman of the ESO working group for public surveys) was carried out in the framework of the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) as a collaboration between ESO, the XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre (SSC), and a group at the Institut für Astrophysik und Extraterrestrische Forschung (IAEF) at the University of Bonn. The aim of the public survey, whose observations were concluded in November 2005, was to provide optical counterparts to serendipitously detected X-ray sources in the southern hemisphere. To provide data for a minimum spectral discrimination and photometric redshift estimates, the public survey was carried out in the B-, V-, R-, and I-passbands down to a limiting magnitude of 25 mag in the AB system in all bands. All data of the public survey taken before October 16, 2003 were reduced, calibrated, and publically released in July 2005 (Dietrich et al. 2006, A&A 449, 837–854).

These reduced and calibrated optical images, single-passband catalogs, reduced X-ray images, and X-ray catalogs are publically available via the links on the navigation bar at the left.