VISION - Vienna survey in Orion I. VISTA Orion A Survey

Abstract

Orion A hosts the nearest massive star factory, thus offering a unique opportunity to resolve the processes connected with the formation of both low- and high-mass stars. Here we present the most detailed and sensitive near-infrared (NIR) observations of the entire molecular cloud to date. With the unique combination of high image quality, survey coverage, and sensitivity, our NIR survey of Orion A aims at establishing a solid empirical foundation for further studies of this important cloud. In this first paper we present the observations, data reduction, and source catalog generation. To demonstrate the data quality, we present a first application of our catalog to estimate the number of stars currently forming inside Orion A and to verify the existence of a more evolved young foreground population. We used the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) to survey the entire Orion A molecular cloud in the NIR $J,H$, and $K_S$ bands, covering a total of $\sim$18.3 deg${}^2$. We implemented all data reduction recipes independently of the ESO pipeline. Estimates of the young populations toward Orion A are derived via the $K_S$-band luminosity function. Our catalog (799995 sources) increases the source counts compared to the Two Micron All Sky Survey by about an order of magnitude. The 90% completeness limits are 20.4, 19.9, and 19.0 mag in $J,H$, and $K_S$, respectively. The reduced images have 20% better resolution on average compared to pipeline products. We find between 2300 and 3000 embedded objects in Orion A and confirm that there is an extended foreground population above the Galactic field, in agreement with previous work. The Orion A VISTA catalog represents the most detailed NIR view of the nearest massive star-forming region and provides a fundamental basis for future studies of star formation processes toward Orion.

Accepted for publication in A&A, high-quality version available at http://homepage.univie.ac.at/stefan.meingast/vision.pdf

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• The UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS)
• The distance to the Orion Nebula
• A Spitzer Survey of Young Stellar Clusters within One Kiloparsec of the Sun: Cluster Core Extraction and Basic Structural Analysis
• unWISE: unblurred coadds of the WISE imaging
• The Nature of the Dense Core Population in the Pipe Nebula: Thermal Cores Under Pressure
• 2MASS wide field extinction maps - I. The Pipe nebula
• Herschel-Planck dust optical-depth and column-density maps: I. Method description and results for Orion
• A Large Catalog of Accurate Distances to Molecular Clouds from PS1 Photometry
• A Parallactic Distance of 389 +24/-21 parsecs to the Orion Nebula Cluster from Very Long Baseline Array Observations
• NICEST, a near-infrared color excess method tailored for small-scale structures
• Evolution of column density distributions within Orion~A
• IN-SYNC IV - The Young Stellar Population in the Orion A Molecular Cloud
• A census of molecular hydrogen outflows and their sources along the Orion A molecular ridge: characteristics and overall distribution
• The distance to the Orion Nebula Cluster
• A FLAMINGOS Deep Near Infrared Imaging Survey of the Rosette Complex I: Identification and Distribution of the Embedded Population
• Hierarchical progressive surveys. Multi-resolution HEALPix data structures for astronomical images, catalogues, and 3-dimensional data cubes
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• Hunting Galaxies to (and for) Extinction

Cited by in corpus (59)

• An ALMA study of the Orion Integral Filament: I. Evidence for narrow fibers in a massive cloud
• 3D shape of Orion A from Gaia DR2
• Gravitational collapse of the OMC-1 region
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• The CARMA-NRO Orion Survey
• The Green Bank Ammonia Survey: Dense Cores Under Pressure in Orion A
• 3D dynamics of the Orion cloud complex -- Discovery of coherent radial gas motions at the 100-pc scale
• VISION - Vienna survey in Orion. III. Young stellar objects in Orion A
• Determining the recurrence timescale of long-lasting YSO outbursts
• Disk masses in the Orion Molecular Cloud-2: distinguishing time and environment
• Slingshot Mechanism for Clusters: Gas Density Regulates Star Density in the Orion Nebula Cluster (M42)
• The Population of Compact Radio Sources in the Orion Nebula Cluster
• Gaia Stellar Kinematics in the Head of the Orion A Cloud: Runaway Stellar Groups and Gravitational Infall
• The JCMT Gould Belt Survey: Dense Core Clusters in Orion A
• The Application of the Montage Image Mosaic Engine To The Visualization Of Astronomical Images
• Nobeyama 45-m mapping observations toward nearby molecular clouds, Orion A, Aquila Rift, and M17: Project overview
• Survey of Orion Disks with ALMA (SODA) I: Cloud-level demographics of 873 protoplanetary disks
• APOGEE strings: a fossil record of the gas kinematic structure
• Discovery of new stellar groups in the Orion complex
• New Evidence for the Dynamical Decay of a Multiple System in the Orion Kleinmann-Low Nebula
• The CARMA-NRO Orion Survey: Protostellar Outflows, Energetics, and Filamentary Alignment
• Estimating Extinction using Unsupervised Machine Learning
• Small Protoplanetary Disks in the Orion Nebula Cluster and OMC1 with ALMA
• SDSS-V Local Volume Mapper (LVM): A Glimpse into Orion
• Extreme radio flares and associated X-ray variability from young stellar objects in the Orion Nebula Cluster
• Low Mass Stars as Tracers of Star and Cluster Formation
• VISION - Vienna Survey in Orion II. Infrared extinction in Orion A
• Orion revisited III. The Orion Belt population
• A VLBA Survey of radio stars in the Orion Nebula Cluster: I. The nonthermal radio population
• Distances to nearby molecular clouds traced by young stars
• HST astrometry in the Orion Nebula Cluster: census of low-mass runaways
• CARMA-NRO Orion Survey: unbiased survey of dense cores and core mass functions in Orion A
• On the origin of the Schechter-like mass function of young star clusters in disk galaxies
• Not so different after all: Properties and Spatial Structure of Column Density Peaks in the Pipe and Orion A Clouds
• Gas absorption and dust extinction towards the Orion Nebula Cluster
• Protostars at Low Extinction in Orion A
• A VLBA Survey of radio stars in the Orion Nebula Cluster: II. Astrometry
• TIMES I: a Systematic Observation in Multiple Molecular Lines Toward the Orion A and Ophiuchus Clouds
• VISIONS: The VISTA Star Formation Atlas -- I. Survey overview
• APEX-SEPIA660 Early Science: Gas at densities above $10^7$ cm${}^{-3}$ towards OMC-1
• A systematic survey of millimetre-wavelength flaring variability of Young Stellar Objects in the Orion Nebula Cluster
• Deep PSF photometric catalog of the VVV survey data
• The VMC Survey - XXXII. Pre-main sequence populations in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Dust extinction map of the Galactic plane based on the VVV survey data
• The NEMESIS Catalogue of Young Stellar Objects for the Orion Star Formation Complex. I. General description of data curation
• From downtown to the outskirts: a radio survey of the Orion Nebula Cluster
• Discovery of an M-type Companion to the Herbig Ae Star V1787 Ori
• Optimal extinction measurements - I. Single-object extinction inference
• A new method to unveil embedded stellar clusters
• A survey of IRAS young stellar object candidates. Searching for large-scale Herbig-Haro objects
• Substellar Initial Mass Function of Trumpler 14
• VISIONS: The VISTA Star Formation Atlas -- II. The data processing pipeline
• Precise determination of circumstellar disk lifetimes: Disk evolution in a single star-forming region
• Dust emission and extinction in the Orion OMC-3 cloud
• Survey of Orion Disks with ALMA (SODA) III: Disks in wide binary systems in L1641 and L1647
• Scale-dependent surface and volume density properties of filaments in molecular clouds
• Direct measurement of ISM proper motion with image registration
• Linking Young Stellar Object Morphology to Evolutionary Stages with Self-Organizing Maps
• Systematic Investigation of Dust and Gaseous CO in 12 Nearby Molecular Clouds