The Chandra Cygnus OB2 Legacy Survey: Design and X-Ray Point-source Catalog

The Cygnus OB2 association is the largest concentration of young and massive stars within 2 kpc of the Sun, including an estimated ~65 O-type stars and hundreds of OB stars. The Chandra Cygnus OB2 Legacy Survey is a large imaging program undertaken with the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer on board the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The survey has imaged the central 0.5 deg² of the Cyg OB2 association with an effective exposure of ~120 ks and an outer 0.35 deg² area with an exposure of ~60 ks. Here we describe the survey design and observations, discuss the data reduction and source detection, and present a catalog of ~8000 X-ray point sources. The survey design employs a grid of 36 heavily (~50%) overlapping pointings, a method that overcomes Chandra's low off-axis sensitivity and produces a highly uniform exposure over the inner 0.5 deg². The full X-ray catalog is described here and is made available online.