Deep U Band and R Imaging of GOODS-South

As part of the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS), deep imaging in the Chandra Deep Field South (CDF-S) has been carried out, using the VIMOS instrument mounted at the Melipal Unit Telescope of the VLT at ESO's Cerro Paranal Observatory, Chile. This data release contains the coadded images in U band from the ESO large programme 168.A-0485 (P.I. C. Cesarsky) which have been obtained in service mode observations between August 2004 and fall 2006.The 1-sigma depth for VIMOS U band in the area covered by the GOODS-ACS observations is ~30 AB (within an aperture of 1" radius, ranging from 29.5 and 30.2 AB). The PSF of the VIMOS U band mosaic is ~0.8" FWHM, but varies over the field. Also included in this data release is a coadded image in R band obtained from data retrieved from the ESO archive. Due to the different observing strategies adopted in the programmes the resulting coverage of the GOODS-ACS area is more complex than for the U band. The depth of the VIMOS R band mosaic over the ACS area ranges from ~28 AB to 29 AB (1-sigma, 1" aperture radius). The PSF of the VIMOS R band mosaic is ~0".7 FWHM and varies over the field.