Credit: ESA/NASA/Herschel/SPIRE

The Herschel SPIRE point source catalogue, released in February 2017, contains more than 1.6 million entries, spread across the three SPIRE bands.

During the science operations phase, between May 2009 and April 2013, SPIRE mapped about nine per cent of the sky in sub-millimeter broad-band filters centred at 250, 350 and 500 microns with spatial resolutions of 17.9", 24.2" and 35.4", respectively.

The SPIRE point source catalogue was extracted from a total of 6878 Herschel/SPIRE observations, consisting of a serendipitous mix of programme science observations and calibration observations performed in standard configurations with sky coverage to various depths. Thanks to the instrument's great sensitivity, depth was much less of a limiting factor than extragalactic and galactic background confusion. To maintain a high degree of reliability, the team opted to impose a limit on structure noise, leading to the exclusion of parts of the galactic plane and a few other regions that are bright in the sub-millimetre band.

The SPIRE point source catalogue, with about 1.6 million sources, and the PACS point source catalogue, containing about 500 000 sources, are available from the Herschel Science Archive through ESASky and Virtual Observatory (VO) tools, such as TopCat, and from the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive.

Provider: Herschel Space Observatory

Image Source: https://www.herschel.caltech.edu/image/nhsc2017-001a

Curator: NASA Herschel Science Center, Pasadena, CA, USA

Image Use Policy: Public Domain