CALIFA, the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area survey: Early Report
  We present the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area survey (CALIFA).
CALIFA's main aim is to obtain spatially resolved spectroscopic information for
~600 galaxies of all Hubble types in the Local Universe (0.005< z <0.03). The
survey has been designed to allow three key measurements to be made: (a)
Two-dimensional maps of stellar populations (star formation histories, chemical
elements); (b) The distribution of the excitation mechanism and element
abundances of the ionized gas; and (c) Kinematic properties (velocity fields,
velocity dispersion), both from emission and from absorption lines. To cover
the full optical extension of the target galaxies (i.e. out to a 3sigma depth
of ~23 mag/arcsec2), CALIFA uses the exceptionally large field of view of the
PPAK/PMAS IFU at the 3.5m telescope of the Calar Alto observatory. We use two
grating setups, one covering the wavelength range between 3700 and 5000 AA at a
spectral resolution R~1650, and the other covering 4300 to 7000 AA at R~850.
The survey was allocated 210 dark nights, distributed in 6 semesters and
starting in July 2010 and is carried out by the CALIFA collaboration,
comprising ~70 astronomers from 8 different countries. As a legacy survey, the
fully reduced data will be made publically available, once their quality has
been verified. We showcase here early results obtained from the data taken so
far (21 galaxies).
