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Oxford University Press (OUP), Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 3(442), p. 1897-1921

DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stu918

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STEP: The VST survey of the SMC and the Magellanic Bridge. I. Overview and first results

Journal article published in 2014 by Vincenzo Ripepi, Michele Cignoni ORCID, Monica Tosi, Marcella Marconi, Ilaria Musella ORCID, Alino Grado, L. Limatola, G. Clementini, E. Brocato, M. Cantiello, M. Capaccioli, E. Cappellaro ORCID, M.-R. L. Cioni, F. Cusano, M. Dall'Ora and other authors.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

STEP (the SMC in Time: Evolution of a Prototype interacting late-type dwarf galaxy) is a Guaranteed Time Observation survey being performed at the VST (the ESO VLT Survey Telescope). STEP will image an area of 74 deg$^2$ covering the main body of the Small Magellanic Cloud (32 deg$^2$), the Bridge that connects it to the Large Magellanic Cloud (30 deg$^2$) and a small part of the Magellanic Stream (2 deg$^2$). Our $g,r,i,H_{α}$ photometry is able to resolve individual stars down to magnitudes well below the main-sequence turnoff of the oldest populations. In this first paper we describe the observing strategy, the photometric techniques, and the upcoming data products of the survey. We also present preliminary results for the first two fields for which data acquisition is completed, including some detailed analysis of the two stellar clusters IC\,1624 and NGC\,419. ; Comment: 28 pages, 22 figures (several in low resolution to reduce size). Accepted for publication on MNRAS