List of deep fields explained

In astronomy, a deep field is an image of a portion of the sky taken with a very long exposure time, in order to detect and study faint objects. The depth of the field refers to the apparent magnitude or the flux of the faintest objects that can be detected in the image. Deep field observations usually cover a small angular area on the sky, because of the large amounts of telescope time required to reach faint flux limits. Deep fields are used primarily to study galaxy evolution and the cosmic evolution of active galactic nuclei, and to detect faint objects at high redshift. Numerous ground-based and space-based observatories have taken deep-field observations at wavelengths spanning radio to X-rays.

The first deep-field image to receive a great deal of public attention was the Hubble Deep Field, observed in 1995 with the WFPC2 camera on the Hubble Space Telescope. Other space telescopes that have obtained deep-field observations include the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the XMM-Newton Observatory, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the James Webb Space Telescope.

Table

The following table gives a partial list of deep-field observations taken since 1995.

class=unsortable	Image !	Name	Year captured	Size (arcminute)	Number of exposures
		1995	2.6′x2.6′	342
		1998	5.3²′	995
		1999–2000	16′ across	11
		2003–2004	2.4′x2.4′	808
		2004–2005	70′x10′	over 500
	Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS)	2011
	ESO’s VLT and the SINFONI instrument^[1]	2012
		2012	2.3′x3′
	Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (UV/VIS/NIR)	2014
	Hubble Frontier Fields MACS J0416.1-2403^[2]	2015
	Hubble Frontier Fields Abell 2744^[3]	2015
	Hubble Frontier Fields MACS J0717.5+3745	2015
	Hubble Frontier Fields MACS J1149.5+2223^[4]	2015
	Hubble Frontier Fields Abell S1063^[5]	2016
	Hubble Frontier Fields Abell 370^[6]	2017
	Hubble Frontier Fields Abell 370 parallel field^[7]	2017
	Hubble Deep UV (HDUV) Legacy Survey^[8]	2018
		2019	25′x25′	7,500
	Dark Energy Survey^[9] ^[10]	2021	18.41′x9.64′
	Webb's First Deep Field	2022	2.4′ across
	James Webb Space Telescope – JADES (James Webb Space Telescope Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey) First Deep Field^[11] ^[12]		2022	??′ across
	James Webb Space Telescope – JADES (James Webb Space Telescope Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey)^[13]		2024	??′ across

See also

• List of Hubble anniversary images

Notes and References

1. News: The Feeding Habits of Teenage Galaxies. 16 March 2012. ESO Press Release.
2. Web site: Vogel. Tracy. MACS J0416 Data is Complete. Frontier Fields. 21 January 2015 . 24 Nov 2015.
3. Web site: Meet the Frontier Fields: Abell 2744. Frontier Fields. 4 February 2014 . 24 Nov 2015.
4. Web site: A galactic gathering. 23 May 2016.
5. Web site: Space... the final frontier. www.spacetelescope.org. 25 July 2016.
6. Web site: Abell 370 . spacetelescope.org. 21 Jun 2018.
7. Web site: Abell 370 parallel field. spacetelescope.org . 21 Jun 2018.
8. Web site: Jenkins . Ann . Villard . Ray . Oesch . Pascal . Montes . Mireia . Hille . Karl . NASA - Hubble Paints Picture of the Evolving Universe . 16 August 2018 . . 17 August 2018 .
9. Web site: [e-mail] . Dark Energy Survey Releases Most Precise Look at the Universe's Evolution - First three years of survey data uses observations of 226 million galaxies over ⅛ of the sky . www.noirlab.edu . en.
10. Web site: [e-mail] . Dark Energy Survey deep field image . www.noirlab.edu . en.
11. News: Gough . Evan . Webb Completes its First "Deep Field" With Nine Days of Observing Time. What did it Find? . 12 December 2022 . . 13 December 2022 .
12. News: Downer . Bethany . NASA's Webb Reaches New Milestone in Quest for Distant Galaxies . 9 December 2022 . . 13 December 2022 .
13. Web site: NASA’s Webb Opens New Window on Supernova Science - NASA Science . science.nasa.gov . 11 June 2024.