ChaMPlane Optical Survey: Mosaic Photometry

Abstract

The ChaMPlane survey to identify and analyze the serendipitous X-ray sources\nin deep Galactic plane fields incorporates the ChaMPlane Optical Survey, which\nis one of NOAO's Long-term Survey Programs. We started this optical imaging\nsurvey in March 2000 and completed it in June 2005. Using the NOAO 4-m\ntelescopes with the Mosaic cameras at CTIO and KPNO, deep images of the\nChaMPlane fields are obtained in V, R, I and H-alpha bands. This paper\ndescribes the process of observation, data reduction and analysis of fields\nincluded in the ChaMPlane Optical Survey, and describes the search for H-alpha\nemission objects and Chandra optical counterparts. We illustrate these\nprocedures using the ChaMPlane field for the black hole X-ray binary GRO\nJ0422+32 as an example.\n