Third Release of VST-OMEGACAM Imaging Products from the Collaboration with INAF

Published: 23 Apr 2026
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The VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at Paranal is now owned and operated by INAF, which is responsible for processing the data and releasing them via the ESO Archive. Imaging data products included in the current DR3 for a number of projects were obtained using the wide-field camera OmegaCAM with the g, r, i, and z filters. 

These data products belong to the following projects:

  •  "Stellar Explosions and their Evolution In Nearby Galaxies" (SEEING, PROG_ID: 112.266U.001,  P.I. L. Izzo): aims at detecting of classical novae in nearby galaxies (d < 7 Mpc),  with the goal to determine their explosion rate. The galaxy sample has been selected in order to maximize its coverage in both g and r bands.
  • "Search for SN explosions from Pop III analogs in the Local Universe" (SN, PROG_ID: 112.266S.001, P.I. M. Della Valle): Search for "Pop III SN-like" events in relatively nearby Universe (z < 1), preparing for future observations with LSST and JWST.
  • "HYPERION Medium Area X-ray serendipitous survey" (HYPER-MAX, PROG_IDs: 110.25AE.001, 112.266L.001, 113.26YJ.001, P.I. D. De Cicco) is a deep photometric project designed to provide uniform optical counterparts in the g, r, i, z bands for approximately 4,000 X-ray sources detected by the HYPERION XMM-Newton Multi-Year Heritage program. Focusing on 18 non-contiguous fields centered on hyper-luminous quasars from the Reionization Epoch (z>6), the survey covers a total area of approximately 3 square degrees.
  • "MeerKAT HI Observations of Nearby Galactic Objects: Observing Southern Emitters" (MHONGOOSE, PROG_IDs: 110.25AJ.001 - P.I. F. Maccagni, 112.266Y.001 - P.I. A. Marasco, 113.26YW.001 - P.I. D. Kleiner) project seeks to investigate the fundamental process of gas accretion from the intergalactic medium, which is essential for sustaining star formation in galaxies over cosmic time. The project requires deep, wide-field optical data in the g and r bands from the VST/OmegaCAM.

The data have been processed using the advanced Astro-WISE and VST-Tube pipelines, ensuring high-quality calibration and reduction. Additional information can be found in the accompanying documentation.

The fully reduced and stacked images, together with their associated weight maps, are available from the ESO Archive Science Portal or via the Table Access Protocol. New reduced data will be released approximately twice a year. Future releases will include additional data to complete the currently released projects, along with new projects. The DOI assigned to the OMEGACAM_INAF data collection is 10.18727/archive/98.