KiDS Data Release 1

Welcome to the webpages dedicated to the first public data release by the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS). KiDS is an ESO public survey carried out with the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) and OmegaCAM camera, that will image 1500 square degrees in four filters (u, g, r, i) in single epochs per filter. The survey is designed to be a weak lensing shear tomography survey, and has as its core science driver mapping of the large-scale matter distribution in the universe and constraining the equation-of-state of Dark Energy. Secondary science cases are manifold and range from galaxy evolution to Milky Way structure, and from detection of white dwarfs to high-redshift quasars.

This first data release (KiDS-ESO-DR1) encompasses the first 50 square degrees that were observed successfully in all filters. Provided in this release are the calibrated, stacked images and their weights, as well as masks and single-band source lists extracted from the stacks.
Data access is provided via the ESO science archive, via the Astro-WISE data management system, and via a synoptic table.
Please see the Acknowledgements page for how to acknowledge use of data from this release.