HerMES: Point source catalogues from Herschel-SPIRE observations II
  The Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey (HerMES) is the largest
Guaranteed Time Key Programme on the Herschel Space Observatory. With a wedding
cake survey strategy, it consists of nested fields with varying depth and area
totalling ~380 deg^2. In this paper, we present deep point source catalogues
extracted from Herschel-SPIRE observations of all HerMES fields, except for the
later addition of the 270 deg^2 HeLMS field. These catalogues constitute the
second Data Release (DR2) made in October 2013. A subset of these catalogues,
which consists of bright sources extracted from Herschel-SPIRE observations
completed by May 1, 2010 (covering ~ 74 deg^2) were released earlier in the
first extensive Data Release (DR1) in March 2012. Two different methods are
used to generate the point source catalogues, the SUSSEXtractor (SXT) point
source extractor used in two earlier data releases (EDR and EDR2) and a new
source detection and photometry method. The latter combines an iterative source
detection algorithm, StarFinder (SF), and a De-blended SPIRE Photometry
(DESPHOT) algorithm. We use end-to-end Herschel-SPIRE simulations with
realistic number counts and clustering properties to characterise basic
properties of the point source catalogues, such as the completeness,
reliability, photometric and positional accuracy. Over 500, 000 catalogue
entries in HerMES fields (except HeLMS) are released to the public through the
HeDAM website (http://hedam.oamp.fr/herMES).
