This paper presents multi-passband optical data obtained from observations of the Chandra Deep Field South ( CDF-S ) , located at \alpha \sim 3 ^ { h } 32 ^ { m } , \delta \sim - 27 ^ { o } 48 ^ { \prime } .
The observations were conducted at the ESO/MPG 2.2m telescope at La Silla using the 8k \times 8k Wide-Field Imager ( WFI ) .
This data set , taken over a period of one year , represents the first field to be completed by the ongoing Deep Public Survey ( DPS ) being carried out by the ESO Imaging Survey ( EIS ) project .
This paper describes the optical observations , the techniques employed for un-supervised pipeline processing and the general characteristics of the final data set .
Image processing has been performed using multi-resolution image decomposition techniques adapted to the EIS pipeline .
The automatic processing steps include standard de-bias and flat-field , automatic removal of satellite tracks , de-fringing/sky-subtraction , image stacking/mosaicking and astrometry .
Stacking of dithered images is carried out using pixel-based astrometry which enables the efficient removal of cosmic rays and image defects , yielding remarkably clean final images .
The final astrometric calibration is based on a pre-release of the GSC-II catalog and has an estimated intrinsic accuracy of ~ { } \hbox to 0.0 pt { $ < $ } { \lower 4.3 pt \hbox { $ \sim$ } } 0.10 arcsec , with all passbands sharing the same solution .
The paper includes data taken in six different filters U ^ { \prime } UBVRI .
The data cover an area of about 0.25 square degrees reaching 5 \sigma limiting magnitudes of U ^ { \prime } _ { AB } = 26.0 , U _ { AB } = 25.7 , B _ { AB } = 26.4 , V _ { AB } = 25.4 ,R _ { AB } = 25.5 and I _ { AB } = 24.7 mag , as measured within a 2 \times FWHM aperture .
The optical data covers the area of \sim 0.1 square degrees for which moderately deep observations in two near-infrared bands are also available , reaching 5 \sigma limiting magnitudes of J _ { AB } \sim 23.4 and K _ { AB } \sim 22.6 .
The current optical/infrared data also fully encompass the region of the deep X-ray observations recently completed by the Chandra telescope .
The optical data presented here , as well as the infrared data released earlier , are publicly available world-wide in the form of fully calibrated pixel and associated weight maps and source lists extracted in each passband .
These data can be requested through the URL “ http : //www.eso.org/eis ” .