unWISE Catalog
The unWISE Catalog contains the positions and fluxes of roughly two billion objects observed by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) over the full sky. The unWISE Catalog has two advantages over the existing WISE catalog (AllWISE): first, it is based on significantly deeper imaging, and second, it features improved modeling of crowded regions. The deeper imaging used in the unWISE Catalog comes from the coaddition of all publicly available 3-5 micron WISE imaging, including that from the ongoing NEOWISE-Reactivation mission, thereby increasing the total exposure time by a factor of 5 relative to AllWISE. At these depths, even at high Galactic latitudes many sources are blended with their neighbors; accordingly, the unWISE analysis simultaneously fits thousands of sources to obtain accurate photometry. The unWISE catalog detects sources at 5 sigma roughly 0.7 magnitudes fainter than the AllWISE catalog and more accurately models millions of faint sources in the Galactic plane, enabling a wealth of Galactic and extragalactic science. In particular, relative to AllWISE, unWISE doubles the number of galaxies detected between redshifts 0 and 1 and triples the number between redshifts 1 and 2, cataloging more than half a billion galaxies over the whole sky.
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Complete Metadata
| @type | dcat:Dataset |
|---|---|
| accessLevel | public |
| bureauCode |
[ "026:00" ] |
| contactPoint |
{ "fn": "IRSA Support", "@type": "vcard:Contact", "hasEmail": "mailto:irsasupport@ipac.caltech.edu" } |
| description | The unWISE Catalog contains the positions and fluxes of roughly two billion objects observed by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) over the full sky. The unWISE Catalog has two advantages over the existing WISE catalog (AllWISE): first, it is based on significantly deeper imaging, and second, it features improved modeling of crowded regions. The deeper imaging used in the unWISE Catalog comes from the coaddition of all publicly available 3-5 micron WISE imaging, including that from the ongoing NEOWISE-Reactivation mission, thereby increasing the total exposure time by a factor of 5 relative to AllWISE. At these depths, even at high Galactic latitudes many sources are blended with their neighbors; accordingly, the unWISE analysis simultaneously fits thousands of sources to obtain accurate photometry. The unWISE catalog detects sources at 5 sigma roughly 0.7 magnitudes fainter than the AllWISE catalog and more accurately models millions of faint sources in the Galactic plane, enabling a wealth of Galactic and extragalactic science. In particular, relative to AllWISE, unWISE doubles the number of galaxies detected between redshifts 0 and 1 and triples the number between redshifts 1 and 2, cataloging more than half a billion galaxies over the whole sky. |
| distribution |
[ { "@type": "dcat:Distribution", "format": "BIN", "mediaType": "application/octet-stream", "downloadURL": "https://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/SCS?table=unwise_2019&" }, { "@type": "dcat:Distribution", "format": "HTML", "mediaType": "text/html", "downloadURL": "https://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/data/WISE/unWISE/gator_docs/unwise_colDescriptions.html" } ] |
| identifier | ivo://irsa.ipac/wise/catalog/unwise |
| keyword |
[ "__" ] |
| landingPage | ivo://irsa.ipac/wise/catalog/unwise |
| license | https://www.usa.gov/government-works |
| modified | 2026-09-07 |
| programCode |
[ "026:000" ] |
| publisher |
{ "name": "NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive", "@type": "org:Organization" } |
| theme |
[ "Astrophysics" ] |
| title | unWISE Catalog |
