The project

VESTIGE is a narrow band imaging survey of the Virgo cluster over ~ 100 deg^2 aimed at studying the role of the environment on galaxy evolution. VESTIGE will be the first deep blind Halpha survey of a nearby cluster. The data will be perfectly suited for comparison with hydrodynamic simulations of gas stripping in dense environments, which are now able to reach resolutions similar to those of the multifrequency data available for Virgo. The combination of data and simulations will allow us to address a wide range of astrophysical questions: the star formation process in galaxies, the fate of the stripped gas in clusters, the dynamical structure of the nearest galaxy cluster, extragalactic planetary nebulae and the origin of the diffuse intracluster light, the ionised gas emission in the Milky Way, and the star formation activity of high-z line emitters.

Observations

VESTIGE is a CFHT Large Program with 78 nights allocated in 2017-2021. The observations will be done using MegaCam coupled with a narrow band filter centered on Halpha and a r band filter for the subtraction of the stellar continuum. The survey has a sensitivity for point sources of f(Ha) = 4x10^-17 erg s^-1 cm^-2 (5 sigma) a surface brightness limit of 2x10^-18 erg s^-1 cm^-2 arcsec^-2 for extended sources (1 sigma after smoothing the data to 3 arcsec resolution).