The Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey Data

Welcome to the section of the Herschel Database in Marseille hosting the public data from the Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey (HerMES).

HerMES is the largest extragalactic survey on the Herschel Space Observatory. You'll find a quick description of it on the survey page. For more information, please visit HerMES website.

All Herschel publications are requested to quote the OBSIDs of the Herschel observations used.

Quick view on HerMES-SPIRE data

Using the Aladin Lite map below you can browse the sky displaying a composite image made with SPIRE 250µm (blue), 350µm (green), and 500µm (red) observations.

How to get data?

Please, note that the HerMES 4^th data release comes in complement of DR2 and DR3 and that some of its products supersede those from these previous releases. You should first look on the DR4 page for data before looking in the other download pages.

The HerMES data is divided in fields — which were observed by the SPIRE instrument at 250, 350 and 500 µm — associated with three homogeneous kind of catalogues. On HeDaM, there are several ways to get these data:

• You can download full datasets and get all-in-one archives (catalogues and associated maps) for a kind of catalogue on a given field.

• You can download individual files. From this page, you can also broadcast the files to a SAMP compatible software. Note that some very specific maps are available in this page that are not present in the dataset archives.

If you use HerMES data for your publications, please visit the acknowledgements page to know how to refer to HerMES work.

Visit the contacts page if you want to subscribe to our mailing list and know when the data available on HeDaM changes.

July, 2016 - Fourth Data Release

We are please to announce our fourth data release (DR3). This release comes in complement to the previous DR2 and DR3 and some of the new products supersede those of these releases. In particular, the DR4 contains:

• The SPIRE maps built from the complete set of observations made by Herschel for the HerMES programme.
• The SPIRE maps of the largest contiguous extragalactic field observed by Herschel obtained by combining the observations of HeLMS (P.I. Marco Viero), HerS (P.I. Marco Viero), and XMM-LSS (part of HerMES). Click to view.
• All-band catalogues extracted on blind 250µm positions for most of HerMES blank fields.
• The first release of PACS maps.
• PACS catalogues of fluxes extracted at Spitzer prior positions.
• A catalogue of SPIRE fluxes extracted at Spitzer prior positions using the XID+ software developed by Peter Hurley for the Herschel Extragalactic Legacy Project (HELP).

All this data is available on the DR4 page.

March, 2016 - Important correction to HeLMS maps

The HeLMS maps have been updated to v0.3. The noise in the error maps of the previous version was around ten times higher than its actual value.

July, 2015 - Third Data Release

We are pleased to announce our third data release (DR3) of cross-identification catalogues based on Spitzer MIPS 24 µm source positions. This release also contain the SPIRE maps from the HerMES Large Mode Survey (HELMS).

Please note that the DR3 does not replace the DR2 but comes in complement to it. The DR3 “Spitzer priors” and the DR2 “blind extraction” catalogues are available alongside on the download page.

The HerMES DR3 was made possible through the support of the Herschel Extragalactic Legacy Project (HELP). HELP is a European Commission Research Executive Agency funded project under the SP1-Cooperation, Collaborative project, Small or medium-scale focused research project, FP7-SPACE-2013-1 scheme.

October, 2013 - Second Data Release

We in the HerMES team are very pleased to announce our second major data release (DR2).

Update July, 2015: The DR2 catalogues are the “blind extraction” catalogues available on the download page alongside the new “Spitzer prior” DR3 catalogues.

April 3^rd, 2012 - First Data Release

We in the HerMES team are very pleased to announce our first major data release, DR1.

This release includes Herschel SPIRE sky maps and object catalogues. The maps were made using 250, 350 and 500 µm filters. These sub-milimeter wavelengths had not been significantly exploited before the Herschel Mission. The maps cover ~74 deg^2 of the sky, i.e. a volume of 6.6e8 (Mpc)^3 for z<1.5 (and many of the galaxies that we see are expected to be at z>1.5) q.v. the SDSS which maps a volume of 3.5e8 (Mpc)^3 for z<0.17. We are releasing data in many very well studied extragalactic survey fields and so we expect this will facilitate a huge range of astrophysics and cosmology.

The maps range in depth but are mostly at or below the SPIRE confusion limit and so provide a very high quality view of the sub-millimeter sky, limited primarily by the diameter of the Herschel mirror. The catalogues extracted from these maps include over 50, 000 catalogue entries, representing over 17,000 galaxies. Extensive simulations have demonstrated that these catalogues are very high quality and ~90% of the point-like galaxies having very reliable positions and flux measurements.

These data release follows two early data releases (July 2010 and September 2011) which were limited to the brightest catalogued sources over a smaller range of fields.