Deep Drilling Fields#
Rubin Observatory’s LSST Deep Drilling Field (DDF) program includes 5 DDF fields, chosen to maximize multi-wavelength coverage with pre-existing surveys. One of the pointings, the Euclid Deep Field South (EDFS) pointing, is a larger field and so is split between an ‘a’ and ‘b’ pointing which share the DDF visits.
The DDF visits are expected to use between about 6.5% to 7% of the total survey time. Each DDF receives on the order of 20,000 visits, except COSMOS which receives approximately double that. The COSMOS field has been selected to receive additional coverage, in order to reach 10-year DDF depth within the first 3 years of the survey as a pathfinder for Data Management processing and science opportunities.
The cadence for the DDFs involves a mixture of “deep” and “ultradeep” seasons. In every season, short sequences execute every two to three days, keeping a tight monitoring cadence on the DDF fields. These are the deep seasons. In an ultradeep season, longer sequences of approximately 100 visits are added every few nights. The bulk of each DDFs visits are acquired in these ultradeep seasons. All DDFs except COSMOS have a single ultradeep season; COSMOS has multiple.
Deep Drilling Field Locations#
ELAISS1 |
XMM_LSS |
ECDFS |
COSMOS |
EDFS_a |
EDFS_b |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
RA |
9.45 |
35.57 |
52.98 |
150.11 |
58.9 |
63.6 |
Dec |
-44.02 |
-4.82 |
-28.12 |
2.23 |
-49.32 |
-47.6 |
Gal l |
311.29 |
171.1 |
224.07 |
236.78 |
257.9 |
254.48 |
Gal b |
-72.88 |
-58.91 |
-54.6 |
42.13 |
-48.46 |
-45.77 |
Eclip l |
346.66 |
31.59 |
40.81 |
151.39 |
32 |
40.97 |
Eclip b |
-43.2 |
-17.92 |
-45.44 |
-9.34 |
-66.61 |
-66.6 |
Last Updated
Last Updated 2026/06/22