The VIRUS-P Exploration of Nearby Galaxies (VENGA): Survey Design and
  First Results
  VENGA is a large-scale extragalactic IFU survey, which maps the bulges, bars
and large parts of the outer disks of 32 nearby normal spiral galaxies. The
targets are chosen to span a wide range in Hubble types, star formation
activities, morphologies, and inclinations, at the same time of having vast
available multi-wavelength coverage from the far-UV to the mid-IR, and
available CO and 21cm mapping. The VENGA dataset will provide 2D maps of the
SFR, stellar and gas kinematics, chemical abundances, ISM density and
ionization states, dust extinction and stellar populations for these 32
galaxies. The uniqueness of the VIRUS-P large field of view permits these
large-scale mappings to be performed. VENGA will allow us to correlate all
these important quantities throughout the different environments present in
galactic disks, allowing the conduction of a large number of studies in star
formation, structure assembly, galactic feedback and ISM in galaxies.
