KiDS is one of the ESO Public Surveys carried out with OmegaCAM at the VLT Survey Telescope (VST). Once complete, 1500 square degrees will have been observed in four filters (u, g, r, i). As a weak lensing shear tomography survey, KiDS will also map the large-scale matter distribution in the Universe and constrain the equation of state of Dark Energy. Its secondary science cases include galaxy evolution and structure of the Milky Way.
Third Public Release of the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS) Now Available
Published: 14 Oct 2016
Calibrated co-added images together with their weight maps, masks and single band source lists are provided for an additional 292 survey pointings, with respect to the previous release (DR2). The sky area covered in DR3 is ~320 square degrees, including all observations executed to October 2015. The multi-band source catalogue, available via the catalogue query interface, lists 49 million sources over the whole area covered so far, i.e. ~470 square degrees. The current catalogue is based on homogenized photometry, and provides colour information and photometric redshifts for these sources.
Extensive information on KiDS DR3 is available in the release notes.