The Dark Energy Survey (DES) has released its first catalogs of data. The survey uses the Blanco 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, with a specially built 570-Megapixel digital camera known as DECam. DES has been running since August 2013, but the first data which was taken before the official start between November 2012 and February 2013 has been released in the ‘Science Verification’ catalogs.

As the news announcing this details, these catalogs are just 3% of the final survey area and contain 25 million objects. The data has already been used in research published by the collaboration, including ICG members.

The data is available for download here.

ICG member Marco Bruni in front of the Blanco telescope, used by DES.