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).