VLA-COSMOS 3 GHz Large project (Smolcic et al. 2016)
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contacts: 
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Vernesa Smolcic: vs@phy.hr
Mladen Novak: mlnovak@phy.hr

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 Basic data info
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 Catalog date: 21-Mar-2016
 Source extractor: BLOBCAT v1.2 (http://blobcat.sourceforge.net/)
 Observations: 384 hours with the VLA, S-band (2-4 GHz), A+C array, 192 pointings
 Imaging software: CASA v4.2.2 (https://casa.nrao.edu/)
 Imaging algorithm: Multi-scale multi-frequency synthesis on single pointings
 Mosaic size: 30000x30000 pixels (3.3 GB)
 Pixel size: 0.2x0.2 arcsec2
 Median rms noise in the COSMOS 2 sq.deg.: 2.3 uJy/beam
 Beam is circular, resolution: 0.75 arcsec
 Bandwidth-smearing peak correction: 0% (no corrections applied)
 Resolved criteria: S_int/S_peak > 1+6*snr^(-1.44)
 Total area covered: 2.6 sq.deg.

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 Final mosaic
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    vla_3ghz_msmf.fits -- Final mosaic (Stokes I map, monochromatic flux at 3 GHz), units in [Jy/beam]

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 Noise map of the final mosaic
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    vla_3ghz_msmf.rms.fits -- Noise map of the final mosaic, units in [Jy/beam]

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 3GHz radio source catalog
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    vla3_cosmos_sources_160321_public5sig.fits -- binary fits file
    vla3_cosmos_sources_160321_public5sig.tbl -- table	

	-- The catalog contains sources selected down to a 5 sigma (sigma~2.3 uJy/beam) threshold. This catalog can be used for statistical analyses, accompanied with the corrections given in the data & catalog release paper (Smolcic et al. 2016).  All completeness & bias corrections and source counts presented in Smolcic et al. (2016) were calculated using this sample. The total fraction of spurious sources in the COSMOS 2 sq.deg. is below 2.7% within this catalog. However, an increase of spurious sources (up to 24% at 5.0<S/N<5.5) is present (for details see Sec. 5.2., Fig. 16 and Tab 3 in the data & catalog release paper). A subsample with a minimal spurious source fraction can be selected by requiring a signal-to-noise ratio SNR >= 5.5 (see Sec. 5.2., Fig. 16 and Tab 3 in the data & catalog release paper). The total fraction of spurious sources in the COSMOS 2 sq.deg. within such a selected sample is below 0.4%, and the fraction of spurious sources is below 3% even at the lowest SNR (=5.5).