Arizona CDFS Environment Survey, ACES

In total, the survey targeted 7277 unique sources down to a limiting magnitude of R_AB_=24.1, yielding 5080 secure redshifts across the ~30'x30' extended CDFS region. The ACES data set delivers a significant increase to both the spatial coverage and the sampling density of the spectroscopic observations in the field.

Combined with previously published spectroscopic redshifts, ACES now creates a highly complete survey of the galaxy population at R<23, enabling the local galaxy density (or environment) on relatively small scales (~1Mpc) to be measured at z<1 in one of the most heavily studied and data-rich fields in the sky. Here, we describe the motivation, design and implementation of the survey and present a preliminary redshift and environment catalogue.