A Deep, Wide Field, Optical, and Near Infrared Catalog of a Large Area around the Hubble Deep Field North

Abstract

We have conducted a deep multi-color imaging survey of 0.2 degrees^2 centered on the Hubble Deep Field North (HDF-N). We shall refer to this region as the Hawaii-HDF-N. Deep data were collected in U, B, V, R, I, and z' bands over the central 0.2 degrees^2 and in HK' over a smaller region covering the Chandra Deep Field North (CDF-N). The data were reduced to have accurate relative photometry and astrometry across the entire field to facilitate photometric redshifts and spectroscopic followup. We have compiled a catalog of 48,858 objects in the central 0.2 degrees^2 detected at 5 sigma significance in a 3" aperture in either R or z' band. Number counts and color-magnitude diagrams are presented and shown to be consistent with previous observations. Using color selection we have measured the density of objects at 3<z<7. Our multi-color data indicates that samples selected at z>5.5 using the Lyman break technique suffer from more contamination by low redshift objects than suggested by previous studies.