ESO_SERC (A0): ESO/SERC Southern Survey field bounds (19911118)
FILE: eso_serc.a0
CONTENTS: ESO/SERC Southern Survey field boundaries. Includes south equatorial extension north to 0 degrees Declination
DATASET: This file is part of HyperSky dataset A-1.3, version 19911118 Availability on HyperSky CD-ROM: Vol. 1 (1993)
DESCRIPTION: This datafile includes the European Southern Observatory/Science and Engineering Research Council Sky Survey boundaries. This survey, done in Australia, is the southern sky complement of the first and second Palomar sky surveys. This file also contains the "south equatorial extension" to the survey, which consists of fields covering the northernmost declination zones (-15, -10, -5, 0 degrees).
COMPARISON WITH FIRST PALOMAR SURVEY: All fields in the south equatorial extension overlap with fields of the first Palomar survey. There is also overlap between the original ESO/SERC survey and southern zones down to -30 covered by the first Palomar survey, and by the first Palomar survey Whiteoak extension further south to the -42 zone.
The ESO/SERC field size, 6.4-degrees-square, matches that of the first Palomar survey. However, the ESO/SERC field centers are somewhat closer together, allowing more field overlap than is provided by the first Palomar survey. Also, the ESO/SERC 1950 field center equinox is more recent than the first Palomar survey's 1855 equinox. For both of these reasons, there is not a one-to-one correspondence between ESO/SERC fields and the first Palomar survey fields in areas south of the celestial equator where the two surveys overlap.
COMPARISON WITH SECOND PALOMAR SURVEY: The ESO/SERC survey (including the south equatorial extension) exactly mirrors the the second Palomar survey (POSS II): for any given field number, the field center is the same in each survey except for the sign of the declination. Fields in each survey are numbered from 1 (at each pole) to 894 (in the equatorial band). Fields 823-894 straddle the celestial equator, and thus are duplicated in the two surveys.
DATA: The following two examples illustrate the general format of an ESO/SERC field description:
Field 836 (04 20 +00) S. equat. ext.
Field 557 (06 39 -20)
The first example represents an ESO/SERC field in the survey's south equatorial extension. The second example is of a field in the original survey, further to the south. In both cases the field number is given (no equivalent number exists for the first Palomar Survey). Each field number is followed by the ESO/SERC equinox 1950 field center in parentheses, where the first two values represent the RA in hours and minutes, and the third signed number represents the Declination in degrees.