The Star Formation Across Cosmic Time (SFACT) Survey. II. The First Catalog from a New Narrowband Survey for Emission-line Objects

Abstract

Star Formation Across Cosmic Time (SFACT) is a new narrowband (NB) survey designed to detect faint emission-line galaxies (ELGs) and QSOs over a broad range of redshifts. Here we present the first list of SFACT candidates from our pilot-study fields. Using the WIYN 3.5 m telescope, we are able to achieve good image quality with excellent depth and routinely detect ELGs to r = 25.0. The limiting line flux of the survey is ∼1.0 × 10 ^−16 erg s ^−1 cm ^−2 . SFACT targets three primary emission lines: H α , [O iii ] λ 5007, and [O ii ] λ 3727. The corresponding redshift windows allow for the detection of objects at z ∼ 0–1. With a coverage of 1.50 deg ^2 in our three pilot-study fields, a total of 533 SFACT candidates have been detected (355 candidates deg ^−2 ). We detail the process by which these candidates are selected in an efficient and primarily automated manner, then tabulate accurate coordinates, broadband photometry, and NB fluxes for each source.

Keywords

• Galaxy evolution
• Emission line galaxies
• Starburst galaxies
• Surveys
• Star formation
• Galaxy Abundances