VINROUGE - VIsta Near-infraRed Observations Unveiling Gravitational wave Events

The data released here were obtained with the VIRCAM instrument on VISTA under programme 198.D-2010. They consist of Y, J & Ks band imaging, and their associated object catalogues, of portions of the error regions for gravitational wave events found during the second LIGO/Virgo science run, O2. Specifically, the events triggered on were the binary black hole mergers GW170809 (~17 sq-deg), GW170814 (~27 sq-deg) and the binary neutron star merger GW170817 (~3.5 sq- deg). For the latter case, the kilonova counterpart of the merger was identified in the second field observed on the first night, and thereafter this field was re-observed for 14 further epochs over the subsequent ~3 weeks. The primary goals of the VINROUGE survey are to locate and characterize the electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave discovered events. This is achieved through wide field, multi-filter imaging of the error regions with VIRCAM on VISTA.