KiDS-Legacy weak-lensing catalogue
The KiDS-Legacy weak lensing sample is described in a series of papers. Details of the fifth data release (including source detection, multi-band photometry, sample definition, and shape measurement/calibration) is presented in Wright, Kuijken, Hildebrandt, Radovich, Bilicki et al 2024. The KiDS-Legacy redshift estimation and calibration framework is presented in Wright, Hildebrandt, van den Busch, et al 2026. Final details of the KiDS-Legacy sample are provided in the cosmic shear analysis manuscript Wright, Stolzner et al 2026.
This Cosmology Talk seminar summarises the main results.
Download the KiDS-Legacy Catalogue
The KiDS-Legacy data set encompasses 1347 survey tiles. Only galaxies
with reliable shape and redshift measurements, our "gold sample", are included in this catalogue.
The catalogue contains a total of 40,894,394 sources, and is presented as a single FITS table.
The table has a reduced range of columns (compared to those available as part of the full DR5 data release), to minimise redundancy and lower the barrier-to-entry for external users wishing to leverage this data-set for cosmological (re-)analyses. Additional columns from the main DR5 release catalogues can be added to this catalogue via a cross-match on-sky, with a functionally zero matching radius (i.e. less than 0.1 arcsec). Columns contained in this catalogue are described in the accompanying text file and in the table below.
Additional data products, including data-vectors, redshift distributions, covariances, etc, can be
downloaded as a single tarball here.
→ Catalogue: KiDS_Legacy_NS_unblind_final.fits.gz
→ Column descriptions: KiDS_Legacy_NS_unblind_final.readme.txt
| Column | Unit | Description | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| THELI_NAME | THELI identifier name for the tile | 17A | |
| RAJ2000 | deg | Centroid sky position right ascension (J2000) (deg) | 1D |
| DECJ2000 | deg | Centroid sky position declination (J2000) (deg) | 1D |
| PATCH | Survey patch identifier (North/South) | 8A | |
| Level | count | Detection threshold above background (count) | 1E |
| FLUX_RADIUS | pixel | Half-light radius (pix) | 1E |
| Agaper | arcsec | Major axis of GAaP aperture optimal min_aper (arcsec) | 1E |
| Bgaper | arcsec | Minor axis of GAaP aperture optimal min_aper (arcsec) | 1E |
| SG2DPHOT | 2DPhot Star/Galaxy classifier (1 for high confidence star) | 1I | |
| MAG_AUTO | mag | r-band magnitude | 1E |
| MAG_GAAP_u | mag | u-band GAaP magnitude optimal min_aper | 1E |
| MAG_GAAP_g | mag | g-band GAaP magnitude optimal min_aper | 1E |
| MAG_GAAP_r | mag | r-band GAaP magnitude optimal min_aper | 1E |
| MAG_GAAP_i1 | mag | i-band GAaP magnitude optimal min_aper, from first pass | 1E |
| MAG_GAAP_i2 | mag | i-band GAaP magnitude optimal min_aper, from second pass | 1E |
| MAG_GAAP_Z | mag | Z-band GAaP magnitude optimal min_aper | 1E |
| MAG_GAAP_Y | mag | Y-band GAaP magnitude optimal min_aper | 1E |
| MAG_GAAP_J | mag | J-band GAaP magnitude optimal min_aper | 1E |
| MAG_GAAP_H | mag | H-band GAaP magnitude optimal min_aper | 1E |
| MAG_GAAP_Ks | mag | Ks-band GAaP magnitude optimal min_aper | 1E |
| Z_B | 9-band BPZ redshift estimate; peak of posterior probability distribution | 1D | |
| T_B | Spectral type corresponding to Z_B | 1D | |
| TOMOBIN | Tomographic bin index | 1I | |
| PSF_e1 | mean ellipticity of PSF, component 1 | 1E | |
| PSF_e2 | mean ellipticity of PSF, component 2 | 1E | |
| PSF_Strehl_ratio | Pseudo-Strehl ratio of PSF (flux fraction in central pixel) | 1E | |
| PSF_Q11 | model PSF moment Q11 | 1E | |
| PSF_Q22 | model PSF moment Q22 | 1E | |
| PSF_Q12 | model PSF moment Q12 | 1E | |
| bulge_fraction | Lensfit galaxy model bulge-fraction B/T | 1E | |
| pixel_SNratio | Lensfit data S/N ratio | 1E | |
| model_SNratio | Lensfit model S/N ratio | 1E | |
| autocal_scalelength_pixels | pixel | Lensfit galaxy model scale length | 1E |
| 2D_measurement_variance | Lensfit measurement variance | 1E | |
| n_exposures_used | Number of exposures used | 1E | |
| delta_SNR | Lensift change in SNR between exposures - useful to detect asteroids | 1E | |
| PSF_e1_exp1 | PSF model ellipticity component 1 on exposure 1 | 1E | |
| PSF_e2_exp1 | PSF model ellipticity component 2 on exposure 1 | 1E | |
| PSF_e1_exp2 | PSF model ellipticity component 1 on exposure 2 | 1E | |
| PSF_e2_exp2 | PSF model ellipticity component 2 on exposure 2 | 1E | |
| PSF_e1_exp3 | PSF model ellipticity component 1 on exposure 3 | 1E | |
| PSF_e2_exp3 | PSF model ellipticity component 2 on exposure 3 | 1E | |
| PSF_e1_exp4 | PSF model ellipticity component 1 on exposure 4 | 1E | |
| PSF_e2_exp4 | PSF model ellipticity component 2 on exposure 4 | 1E | |
| PSF_e1_exp5 | PSF model ellipticity component 1 on exposure 5 | 1E | |
| PSF_e2_exp5 | PSF model ellipticity component 2 on exposure 5 | 1E | |
| shear_weight_only | Recalibrated Lensfit inverse variance weight | 1E | |
| gold_weight_only | N(z) estimation gold-weight | 1E | |
| e1 | c-corrected and recalibrated Lensfit ellipticity e1 - no m corr | 1E | |
| e2 | c-corrected and recalibrated Lensfit ellipticity e2 - no m corr | 1E | |
| weight | Final source weight, including shear and gold weights | 1E |
Acknowledgment
We welcome independent analyses of the KiDS-Legacy data products, provided that KiDS is acknowledged in any resulting publications. Users of these data are required to include the following statement in their paper:
Based on data obtained from the ESO Science Archive Facility with DOI: https://doi.org/10.18727/archive/37, and https://doi.eso.org/10.18727/archive/59 and on data products produced by the KiDS consortium. The KiDS production team acknowledges support from: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, ERC, NOVA and NWO-M grants; Target; the University of Padova, and the University Federico II (Naples).
Additionally, any publications should cite the relevant KiDS-Legacy papers as follows:
We use the gold sample of weak lensing and photometric redshift measurements from the fifth data release of the Kilo-Degree Survey (Wright et al. 2024), hereafter referred to as KiDS-Legacy. Methodological details of the analyses can be found in Wright et al. 2025a (redshift distributions), Reischke et al 2025 (covariances), and Li et al 2023 (shape calibration). Cosmological parameter constraints from KiDS-Legacy have been presented in Wright et al. 2025b (cosmic shear), Stölzner et al. 2025 (consistency), Stölzner et al 2026 (modified gravity), and Reischke et al 2026 (beyond ΛCDM).