The ATESP radio survey

I. Survey description, observations and data reduction

¹ Dipartimento di Astronomia, Università di Bologna, via Ranzani 1, I-40126 Bologna, Italy
² Istituto di Radioastronomia, CNR, Via Gobetti 101, I-40129 Bologna, Italy
³ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Bologna, Via Irnerio 46, I-40126 Bologna, Italy
⁴ Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna, Via Ranzani 1, I-40126 Bologna, Italy
⁵ Australia Telescope National Facility, CSIRO, PO Box 76, Epping, NSW2121, Australia

Corresponding author: Send offprint request to: I. Prandonie-mail: prandoni@ira.bo.cnr.it

Received: 7 March 2000
Accepted: 23 June 2000

Abstract


This paper is the first of a series reporting the results of the Australia Telescope ESO Slice Project (ATESP) radio survey obtained at 1400 MHz with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) close to the South Galactic Pole (SGP) over the region covered by the ESO Slice Project (ESP) galaxy redshift survey (). The survey consists of 16 radio mosaics with resolution and uniform sensitivity ( noise level ~79 μJy) over an area of  sq. degrees. Here we present the design of the survey, we describe the mosaic observing technique which was used to obtain an optimal combination of uniform and high sensitivity over the whole area, and the data reduction: the problems encountered and the solutions adopted.