The Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey is a 104 square degree survey of the Virgo Cluster , carried out using the MegaPrime camera of the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope , from semesters 2009A–2012A .
The survey will provide coverage of this nearby dense environment in the universe to unprecedented depth , providing profound insights into galaxy formation and evolution , including definitive measurements of the properties of galaxies in a dense environment in the local universe , such as the luminosity function .
The limiting magnitude of the survey is g _ { AB } = 25.7 ( 10 \sigma point source ) , and the 2 \sigma surface brightness limit is g _ { AB } \approx 29 ~ { } \mathrm { mag~ { } arcsec } ^ { -2 } .
The data volume of the survey ( approximately 50 terabytes of images ) , while large by contemporary astronomical standards , is not intractable .
This renders the survey amenable to the methods of astroinformatics .
The enormous dynamic range of objects , from the giant elliptical galaxy M87 at M ( B ) = -21.6 , to the faintest dwarf ellipticals at M ( B ) \approx - 6 , combined with photometry in 5 broad bands ( u * g ’ r ’ i ’ z ’ ) , and unprecedented depth revealing many previously unseen structures , creates new challenges in object detection and classification .
We present results from ongoing work on the survey , including photometric redshifts , Virgo cluster membership , and the implementation of fast data mining algorithms on the infrastructure of the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre , as part of the Canadian Advanced Network for Astronomical Research ( CANFAR ) .