ESO Imaging Survey. Hubble Deep Field South: Optical-Infrared Observations, Data Reduction and Photometry

This paper presents ground-based data obtained from deep optical and infrared observations of the HST Hubble Deep Field South (HDF-S) field carried out at the ESO 3.5 New Technology Telescope (NTT). These data were taken as part of the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) program, a public survey coordinated by ESO and member states, in preparation for the first year of operation of the VLT. Deep CCD images are available for five optical passbands, reaching 2 sigma limiting magnitudes of U_AB~27.0, B_AB~26.5, V_AB~26, R_AB~26, I_AB~25, covering a region of ~25 square arcmin, which includes the HST WPFC2 field. The infrared observations cover a total area of ~42 square arcmin and include both the HST WFPC2 and STIS fields. The observations of the WFPC2 region were conducted in JHKs passbands, reaching J_AB~25, and H_AB and K_AB~24.0. Due to time constraints, the adjacent field, covering the STIS field, has been observed only in R, I and JHKs, while no observations were conducted covering the NIC3 field. This paper describes the observations and data reduction. It also presents images of the surveyed region and lists the optical and infrared photometric parameters of the objects detected on the co-added images of each passband, as well as multicolor optical and infrared catalogs. These catalogs together with the astrometrically and photometrically calibrated co-added images are being made public world-wide and can be retrieved from the world-wide web (this http URL).