DECaPS is a five-band optical and near-infrared survey of the southern Galactic plane with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) at Cerro Tololo. The survey is designed to reach past the main-sequence turn-off at the distance of the Galactic center through a reddening E(B-V) of 1.5 mag, with a typical single-exposure depth of 23.7, 22.8, 22.2, 21.8, and 21.0 mag in the grizY bands, and seeing around 1''. The footprint covers \(|b| < 4°\), \(5° > l > -120°\) (essentially the low latitude Galactic plane south of \(\delta < -30°\)), a total of about 1000 square degrees. DECaPS simultaneously solves for the positions and fluxes of all the sources in each image, delivering positions and fluxes of roughly two billion stars with up to 5 mmag repeatability. Most of these objects are highly reddened and deep in the Galactic disk, probing the structure and properties of the Milky Way and its interstellar medium.

The full survey is publicly available. The full survey can be rapidly browsed and inspected via the DECam Legacy Survey viewer. Raw and processed images are available through the NOAO Archive. The complete catalogs for the survey, both from individual images and band-merged, are also public.

Further information