The VST Early-type GAlaxy Survey: Exploring the Outskirts and Intra-cluster Regions of Galaxies in the Low-surface- brightness Regime
Abstract
The VST Early-type GAlaxy Survey (VEGAS) is a deep, multi-band (u, g, r, I) imaging survey, carried out with the 2.6-metre VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile. VEGAS combines the wide (1-square- degree) field of view of the VST's OmegaCAM imager and long integration times, together with a specially designed observing strategy. It has proven to be a gold mine for studies of features at very low surface brightness, down to levels of μg ~ 27-30 magnitudes arcsec-2, over 5-8 magnitudes fainter than the dark sky at Paranal. In this article we highlight the main science results obtained with VEGAS observations of galaxies across different environments, from dense clusters of galaxies to unexplored poor groups and in the field.
- Publication:
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The Messenger
- Pub Date:
- June 2021
- DOI:
- 10.18727/0722-6691/5232
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2106.06448
- Bibcode:
- 2021Msngr.183...25I
- Keywords:
-
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
- E-Print:
- Published in The Messenger, vol. 183, p. 25-29