Spitzer MIPS 24 and 70 micron Imaging near the South Ecliptic Pole: Maps and Source Catalogs

We have imaged an 11.5 sq. deg. region of sky towards the South Ecliptic Pole (RA = 04h43m, Dec = -53d40m, J2000) at 24 and 70 microns with MIPS, the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer. This region is coincident with a field mapped at longer wavelengths by AKARI and the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope. We discuss our data reduction and source extraction procedures. The median depths of the maps are 47 microJy/beam at 24 micron and 4.3 mJy/beam at 70 micron. At 24 micron, we identify 93098 point sources with signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) >5, and an additional 63 resolved galaxies; at 70 micron, we identify 891 point sources with SNR >6. From simulations, we determine a false detection rate of 1.8% (1.1%) for the 24 micron (70 micron) catalog. The 24 and 70 micron point-source catalogs are 80% complete at 230 microJy and 11 mJy, respectively. These mosaic images and source catalogs will be available to the public through the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive.
Comment: 30 pages, 9 figures, 4 tables. Submitted to ApJS. Maps and catalogs can be downloaded from http://blastexperiment.info/release/SEP_MIPS/sep-mips.php, and will be soon be available through IRSA