Creating updated, scientifically-calibrated mosaic images for the RC3
  catalogue
  The Third Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies (RC3) is a reasonably
complete listing of 23,011 nearby, large, bright galaxies. By using the final
imaging data release from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we generate
scientifically-calibrated FITS mosaics by using the montage program for all
SDSS imaging bands for all RC3 galaxies that lie within the survey footprint.
We further combine the SDSS g, r, and i band FITS mosaics for these galaxies to
create color-composite images by using the STIFF program. We generalized this
software framework to make FITS mosaics and color-composite images for an
arbitrary catalog and imaging data set. Due to positional inaccuracies inherent
in the RC3 catalog, we employ a recursive algorithm in our mosaicking pipeline
that first determines the correct location for each galaxy, and subsequently
applies the mosaicking procedure. As an additional test of this new software
pipeline and to obtain mosaic images of a larger sample of RC3 galaxies, we
also applied this pipeline to photographic data taken by the Second Palomar
Observatory Sky Survey with $B_J$, $R_F$, and $I_N$ plates. We publicly release
all generated data, accessible via a web search form, and the software pipeline
to enable others to make galaxy mosaics by using other catalogs or surveys.
