First Public Release of Canadian Galactic Plane Survey Data

A three wavelength composite of a 5 square degree region in Perseus. (Red --> 60 microns; Green--> HI-40 km/sec Blue --> CO-40KM/sec)

This month the first data sets from the Canadian Galactic Plane Survey project are being released to the public domain through the Canadian Astronomical Data Centre at the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics. The Canadian Galactic Plane Survey is an international collaboration to map all of the major interstellar components of the Milky Way at a common resolution: neutral atomic gas, molecular gas, ionized gas, dust grains, and relativistic plasma. The CGPS accomplishes this by merging several survey projects to produce a database of high sensitivity, high spatial dynamic range images with arcminute scale angular resolution and full coverage of spatial frequencies. These data were created by the CGPS consortium with the support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council and the National Research Council.

According to the CGPS consortium agreement, processed data are made public 18 months after release to the consortium. The data take the form of several overlapping 1024x1024 mosaic images, each 5.1 x 5.1 degrees. The full survey regions is covered by 36 such mosaics.

The first data to be released comprises the DRAO radio continuum and atomic hydrogen data for one mosaic at the high longitude region of the survey (l = 145 degrees). These data became available on 20 September. Complementary data from the partner survey projects and a second field will become available within a month. Data from additional fields will follow.

The CGPS database is intended to make possible multi-frequency studies of the phases, states and processes within the interstellar medium. We are proud of the quality of the CGPS images, and take great pleasure in providing them to the community.

Details of the CGPS project and the data products can be found at http://www.ras.ucalgary.ca/CGPS.