zCOSMOS (PI: Simon Lilly, ESO Large Programme 175.A-0839) is a large redshift survey undertaken in the COSMOS field using the VIMOS spectrograph. About 600 hours were awarded to this large programme, which was executed between 2005 and 2010.

The survey was split into two parts: the first, zCOSMOS-bright, which is the subject of this release, aims to produce a redshift survey of about 20000 I-band selected galaxies at redshift z<1.2. It covers approximately 1.7 deg² of the COSMOS field and has a transverse dimension at z~1 of 75 Mpc. The second part, zCOSMOS-deep, observed a smaller number of galaxies at higher redshift in the range 1.5<z<3.0.

The current new release completes the zCOSMOS-bright survey. In details, it includes 20689 wavelength calibrated 1-d spectra and associated 5"x5" image cut-outs for each target (FITS and JPEG format) extracted from HST/ACS images in the F814W filter, available via the dedicated Phase 3 query interface. It also includes a spectroscopic catalogue that contains the determined redshifts and confidence classes. It is supported by a comprehensive description.