ESO imaging survey. III. Multicolor data near the South Galactic Pole

This paper presents multicolor data obtained for a 1.7 square degree region near the South Galactic Pole (patch B) as part of the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS). So far the observations have been conducted in B, V and I, but are expected to be complemented by observations in the U-band later in 1998. Object catalogs extracted from single exposure images are 80% complete down to B ~ 24, V ~ 23.5 and I ~ 22.5, and once co-added should reach about 0.5 mag deeper. The data are being made public in the form of catalogs, pixel maps, target lists and image ``postage stamps'', which can be retrieved from the Web. Counts of stars and galaxies and the angular two-point correlation function of galaxies are computed and compared to other available data to evaluate the depth and uniformity of the extracted object catalogs. In addition, color distributions of stellar objects are presented and compared to model predictions to examine the reliability of the colors. The results suggest that the overall quality of the catalogs extracted from the images is good and suitable for the science goals of the survey. The results show that the data for patch B should be useful for the selection of high-z candidate QSOs, to constrain galactic models and to identify different stellar populations.