UV-Bright Quasar Survey (UVQS) DR1 Catalog

This table contains data from the first data release (DR1) from the UV-bright Quasar Survey (UVQS) for new z ~ 1 active galactic nuclei (AGN) across the sky. Using simple GALEX UV and WISE near-IR color selection criteria, the authors generated a list of 1,450 primary candidates with FUV &lt; 18.5 mag, that is contained in the HEASARC table (entries with source_sample = &#39;P&#39;). They obtained discovery spectra, primarily on 3m-class telescopes, for 1,040 of these candidates and confirmed 86% as AGN, with redshifts generally at z &gt; 0.5. Including a small set of observed secondary candidates, the authors report the discovery of 217 AGN with GALEX FUV magnitudes &lt; 18 mag that previously had no reported spectroscopic redshifts. These are excellent potential targets for UV spectroscopy before the end of the Hubble Space Telescope mission. The main data products of UVQS are publicly available through the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST). The authors have performed an all-sky survey for z ~ 1, FUV-bright quasars selected from GALEX and WISE photometry. In several of the observing runs, conditions were unexpectedly favorable and we exhausted the primary candidates at certain right ascension ranges. To fill the remaining observing time, they generated a secondary candidate list. This secondary set of 2,010 candidates is also contained in this HEASARC table (entries with source_sample = &#39;S&#39;). The authors proceeded to obtain discovery-quality long-slit spectra (i.e., low-dispersion, large-wavelength coverage, modest signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of their UV-bright Quasar Survey (UVQS) candidates in one calendar year. The principal facilities were: (i) the dual Kast spectrometer on the 3m Shane telescope at the Lick Observatory; (ii) the Boller &amp; Chivens (BCS) spectrometer on the Irenee du Pont 100-inch telescope at the Las Campanas Observatory; and (iii) the Calar Alto Faint Object Spectrograph on the CAHA 2.2-meter telescope at the Calar Alto Observatory (CAHA). They acquired an additional ~20 spectra on larger aperture telescopes (Keck/ESI, MMT/MBC, Magellan/MagE) during twilight or under poor observing conditions. Typical exposure times were limited to &lt; ~200s, with adjustments for fainter sources or sub-optimal observing conditions. Table 3 in the reference paper provides a list of the details of the observations of these candidates. From the total candidates list of 3,460 objects, the authors measured high-quality redshifts (redshift quality flag values of 3 or greater) for 1,121 sources. They assumed that every source with a recessional velocity v&lt;sub&gt;r&lt;/sub&gt; = z * c &lt; 500 km s&lt;sup&gt;-1&lt;/sup&gt; was &quot;Galactic&quot;, which they associate with the Galaxy and members of the Local Group. This included sources where the eigenspectra fits were poor yet a low v&lt;sub&gt;r&lt;/sub&gt; was indisputable (e.g., stars). Many of these were assigned z = 0 exactly. The remainder of the UVQS sources were assumed to be extragalactic AGN, and the derived redshift information for these sources (which was given in Table 4 of the reference paper) has been incorporated into this HEASARC representation of UVQS. Finally, there were 93 sources with good-quality spectra for which we cannot the authors could not recover a secure redshift. The majority of these have been previously cataloged as blazars (or BL Lac objects). Table 6 in the reference paper lists the sample of these unknown or insecure redshift objects. This table was created by the HEASARC in April 2017 based upon the &lt;a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/J/AJ/152/25"&gt;CDS Catalog J/AJ/152/25&lt;/a&gt; files table1.dat, table2.dat, and table4.dat. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

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Organization: National Aeronautics and Space Administration