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