The Star Formation Across Cosmic Time (SFACT) survey is a new narrowband survey designed to detect emission-line galaxies (ELGs) and quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) over a wide range of redshifts in discrete redshift windows. The survey utilizes the WIYN 3.5 m telescope and the Hydra multifiber positioner to perform efficient follow-up spectroscopy on galaxies identified in the imaging part of the survey. Because the objects in the SFACT survey are selected by their strong emission lines, it is possible to obtain useful spectra for even the faintest of our sources (r ∼ 25). Here, we present the 453 objects that have spectroscopic data from the three SFACT pilot-study fields, 415 of which are confirmed ELGs. The methodology for processing and measuring these data is outlined in this paper, and example spectra are displayed for each of the three primary emission lines used to detect objects in the survey (Hα, [O III]λ5007, and [O II]λ3727). Spectra of additional QSOs and nonprimary-emission-line detections are also shown as examples. The redshift distribution of the pilot-study sample is examined, and the ELGs are placed in different emission-line diagnostic diagrams in order to distinguish the star-forming galaxies from the active galactic nuclei.
Star Formation Across Cosmic Time (SFACT) is a new narrowband (NB) survey designed to detect faint emission-line galaxies (ELGs) and QSOs over a broad range of redshifts. Here we present the first list of SFACT candidates from our pilot-study fields. Using the WIYN 3.5 m telescope, we are able to achieve good image quality with excellent depth and routinely detect ELGs to r = 25.0. The limiting line flux of the survey is ∼1.0 × 10−16 erg s−1 cm−2. SFACT targets three primary emission lines: Hα, [O iii] λ5007, and [O ii] λ3727. The corresponding redshift windows allow for the detection of objects at z ∼ 0–1. With a coverage of 1.50 deg2 in our three pilot-study fields, a total of 533 SFACT candidates have been detected (355 candidates deg−2). We detail the process by which these candidates are selected in an efficient and primarily automated manner, then tabulate accurate coordinates, broadband photometry, and NB fluxes for each source.
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