GALEX/COSMOS Prior-based Photometry Catalog

COSMOS is an astronomical survey designed to probe the formation and evolution of galaxies as a function of cosmic time (redshift) and large scale structural environment. The survey covers a 2 square degree equatorial field with imaging by most of the major space-based telescopes (Hubble, Spitzer, GALEX, XMM, Chandra) and a number of large ground based telescopes (Subaru, VLA, ESO-VLT, UKIRT, NOAO, CFHT, and others). Over 2 million galaxies are detected, spanning 75% of the age of the universe. This catalog was created using u*-band priors and the EM-algorithm. Appropriate references for a description of the method are: Guillaume, M. et al. 2006, Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 6064, pp. 332-341. This is the current reference, and contains all the basics of the method and algorithm. A more specific reference for this catalog is Zamojski et al. (2008). The algorithm was run on the four NUV and the four FUV GALEX images covering the COSMOS field. It was run on the "-int" images (intensity maps) obtained as a product of the GALEX pipeline processing, version 1.61. The u*-band mosaic image and SExtractor catalog used as priors in this run were generously provided by Henry McCracken (IAP) and are based on CFHT-u* observations of the COSMOS field. This dataset or service is made available by the Infrared Science Archive (IRSA) at IPAC, which is operated by the California Institute of Technology under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.